Elizabeth Short-Centenary

Posted on July 29, 2024 by Deranged

Today, July 29, 2024, marks the centenary of Elizabeth Short’s birth. Born in Boston, Beth, as she often preferred to be called, was the middle child of Cleo and Phoebe Short. She had four sisters: Virginia, Dorothea, Elnora, and Muriel.

Cleo held various sales jobs over the years. The miniture golf craze of the 1920s captured his imagination. He opened a course, but in 1930, the business tanked. Rather than face the loss, and his responsibilities to his family, he positioned his car close to a bridge to create the appearance of suicide. A houseful of women has its comforts, but Cleo’s abandonment appears to have profoundly affected Beth.

Miniature golf was all the rage in the 1920s and 1930s.

A few years later, Cleo wrote to Phoebe and asked for forgiveness. She refused. At least Beth knew Cleo was alive. She hoped for a relationship. She found him in California. Rather than a loving father, he was a mean drunk, looking for a housekeeper, not a daughter. Their reunion failed.

In 1943, she worked at Camp Cooke, now Vandenberg Air Force Base, where they voted her “Camp Cutie. On September 23, 1943, she got arrested for underage drinking at the El Paseo restaurant in Santa Barbara. The jail matron gave her money for a bus ticket back to Medford, Massachusetts.

Because of her asthma, Beth would regularly escape the harsh Massachusetts winters to work as a waitress in Florida.

Major Matt Gordon, a decorated fighter pilot, met Beth in Miami, Florida while on leave in 1944. He may have been on leave after sustaining injuries in a plane crash in February. A photo of them together shows him smiling, and Beth with stars in her eyes, and a proprietary hand on his arm. The handsome pilot was everything the twenty-year-old wanted.

Matt’s death in a plane crash near Kalaikunda in West Bengal, India, on August 10, 1945, was a cruel twist of fate. It happened just one day after the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, and only weeks before the war ended. Matt’s loss devastated Beth.

After August 1945, she never worked again. She drifted from Medford, to Chicago, Florida, and to Los Angeles—chasing a ghost.

She lived in Long Beach, California, during the summer of 1946. While there, friends nicknamed her the Black Dahlia. By the end of the year, she was couch surfing at the home of Dorothy and Elvera French in San Diego. While in San Diego, she met a traveling salesman, Robert “Red” Manley, when he offered her a ride.

Beth and the married salesman, a fact he no doubt concealed from her, corresponded for a month or two before she asked him if he would drive her back to Los Angeles in early January 1947. He agreed.

Red picked her up at the French’s on January 8^th. They drove up the coast and stayed the night in a motel before arriving in Los Angeles on January 9^th. Beth checked her luggage at the bus depot. Red refused to leave her in such a sketchy neighborhood. He took her to the Biltmore Hotel, where she told him she was meeting her sister, Virginia. It was a lie. Virginia lived hundreds of miles north in Oakland.

Red stayed with her in the hotel lobby for a long time before he left. Beth, now on her own, left the hotel lobby, turned right on Olive, and vanished.

On the morning of January 15, a Leimert Park housewife, Betty Bersinger, discovered Beth’s body while out running errands. Where was Beth for those missing days? No one who knew her saw her during that time. The thought of her being held captive by her killer is horrifying.

Once police established her identity, reporters saw it as an opportunity to pry into every detail of Beth’s life. The dead lose their right to privacy. Speculation filled column after column in the newspapers. The prevailing attitude was that nice girls do not get murdered. Yet Beth had done nothing, good or bad, worthy of note. At 22-years-old, she never got the chance.

As time passed with no solution, the case grew cold. Other murders captured headlines. It was not until decades later, following a couple of books, and a mid-1970s made-for-TV movie, that Beth’s story became news again.

It is understandable that the case is known in Los Angeles, but what I find most interesting is that the 77-year-old Los Angeles murder mystery has drawn global interest. What is it about Beth’s murder that resonates with people even today?

It may be the supposed Hollywood connection.

Most contemporary articles erroneously describe Beth as an aspiring actress, or starlet. Such characterizations make her murder the ultimate Hollywood heartbreak story with a violent twist.

Still, two distinct narratives about Beth co-exist. One is the myth of the Black Dahlia, a fictional character based on Beth’s life.

The second story, and the one I believe is true, is that of a depressed, confused, and needy young woman seeking marriage and stability in the chaos and uncertainty of the post-war world.

Each of her sisters married and had children. By the time of Phoebe’s death in 1992, three daughters, thirteen grandchildren, twenty-one great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandson survived her. If Beth had lived, she would undoubtedly contributed heirs.

We have lost sight of the troubled young woman who came to California to connect with her father—not to break into the movies.

The tragedy of Beth’s life is not that she failed to achieve Hollywood stardom, she never sought it.

Beth was looking for what most people her age wanted—marriage and a home. She pursued a romantic vision of a husband in uniform with shiny bright brass buttons, and a bungalow with a white picket fence.

Judging by an undated letter she received from Lieutenant Stephen Wolak, she did not hesitate to press a man for marriage. Wolak’s letter reads in part, “When you mention marriage in your letter, Beth, I get to wondering. Infatuation is sometimes mistaken for true love. I know whereof I speak, because my ardent love soon cools off.”

Wolak’s response to Beth’s letter is a frank assessment of their relationship—which, in his estimation, was not serious. You can gauge her desperation from his response.

How many other men in uniform received letters from Beth suggesting marriage?

A depressed and lonely young woman with daddy issues looking for love is not necessarily the stuff of bestselling books or blockbuster movies.

The pathos of Beth’s real life can make us uncomfortable, so we perpetuate the myth of the Black Dahlia. It is the epic tale of a beautiful young woman seeking stardom who meets a brutal end at the hands of a depraved killer that mesmerizes us.

I imagine in the years to come—no matter what may be revealed; we will continue to hold fast to the myth.

Red Manley and the Black Dahlia

Posted on January 20, 2024 by Deranged

In his 1991 autobiography, Reporters: Memoirs of a Young Newspaperman, Will Fowler recalled one of his colleagues, Baker Conrad, had noticed a telegram among Elizabeth Short’s belongings. The Examiner’s editor, Jim Richardson, dispatched Fowler to the address on the telegram, 8010 Mountain View Avenue in South Gate.

When Fowler arrived at the bungalow court, a strikingly beautiful young woman greeted him. Her name was Harriette Manley. Fowler let her believe he was a cop.

During their conversation, Harriette said her husband phoned her from San Francisco after he saw his name in the newspapers in connection with Elizabeth Short’s murder. Red reassured Harriette that he’d had nothing to do with the slaying. He said he “loved her more than any man ever loved his wife.”

At 10:00 pm on January 19th, two LAPD sergeants, J.W. Wass and Sam Flowers, staked out the home of Red’s employer in Eagle Rock. When the suspect’s sedan pulled up, the officers approached him with their guns drawn. An Examiner photographer was there to capture the arrest.

The next day, Aggie Underwood interviewed him. Red needed no encouragement to unburden himself. He told her how he’d picked Beth Short up on a San Diego street corner. How they had spent an “erotically uneventful” night in a motel and how he eventually dropped her off at the Biltmore Hotel on January 9^th.

Red finished his tale with a heartfelt statement. “I’ll never pick up another dame as long as I live.”

Aggie believed Red and shared her gut feelings with the police. Red was forthcoming in his interview. Aggie knew he wasn’t a killer. Red was a frightened man with goofy ideas about love, marriage, and fidelity.

“I was only trying to test my love for my wife,” he said as he sought to explain his brief escapade with Beth Short.

Red said he first saw Beth standing on a street corner in San Diego while on a business trip ten days before Christmas. “She looked cute, so I thought, well, I’ll make a little test and see if I’m still in love with my wife, or whether I could ever fall for anyone else.”

According to Red, he and Harriette, married for just 14 months, were going through a “readjustment period.” He said they had a “few misunderstandings, but nothing important.”

He swore up and down that Beth was the only woman he picked up since his marriage. When he approached her that day, Beth was coy. “She turned to me and said, ‘Don’t you think it’s wrong to approach a girl this way?’” Wrong or not, she got into his car within a minute or two. Before he dropped her off in Pacific Beach, where she was couch-surfing at the home of Elvera and Dorothy French. they sat in his car and talked. He asked her if she would go out to dinner with him. “That would be nice,” she said.

Red drove back up the highway and rented a motel room. He picked Beth up that evening and they went to a nightclub and danced until midnight. Afterwards, they stopped at a drive-in for a snack. He said they talked for a few minutes in front of the French home. Red kissed her goodnight, but said she was a little cold.

He didn’t see her again until January 7, on his next trip to San Diego. He wired ahead to let her know he would be in town. They went nightclubbing again. Then they stayed together in a motel on their way back to Los Angeles.

Red’s story, and his demeanor, convinced Aggie he was not a killer, but that didn’t mean she let him off easy.

If there was one thing that Aggie detested, it was a sob sister. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a sob sister is a female journalist who writes overly sentimental copy. That sort of journalism was never Aggie’s thing. She said, “A sob sister could have wept with and over Manley, interpolating, editorial gushes to prove what a big bleeding-heart beat in her breast. To hell with that. I’d rather have a fistful—an armload—of good solid facts.”

Her armload of facts made Aggie’s interview with Red Manley riveting. In fact, her city editor, who normally cautioned her to keep her copy short, let the entire interview run without a ton of photos. He knew a great interview when he read one. Aggie was the only Los Angeles reporter to get a by-line in the Dahlia case.

Why, then, amid the covering of the murder, was Aggie yanked off the story? With no warning or explanation, Aggie found herself benched. The city editor let her cool her heels in the newsroom without a thing to do.

Aggie spent a couple of miserable days at her desk, bored out of her mind. Then she got pissed-off enough to fight back. She didn’t get huffy or raise her voice. She brought in an embroidery project. In no time, the other newsroom denizens were snickering. One newswoman, Caroline Walker, said, “What do you think of that? Here’s the best reporter on the Herald, on the biggest day of one of the best stories in years—sitting in the office doing fancy work!”

The next day, they reassigned Aggie to the story—only to pull her off a second time. What the hell was going on?

NEXT TIME: The Black Dahlia case continues.

Aggie and the Black Dahlia

Posted on January 15, 2024 by Deranged

Elizabeth Short left the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel on January 9, 1947, and vanished. Where did she go? Is it possible she stopped at the Crown Grill at 8^th and Olive seeking a familiar face and a free ride to Hollywood? When questioned by LAPD detectives, none of the employees or patrons recalled seeing her that night.

People often wonder where Beth was during her “lost week.” I believe she left the Biltmore to go to Hollywood. She knew people there, and might find a place to stay, even if just for a couple of nights. Despite reports, there is no credible evidence that anyone ever saw Beth after she left the Biltmore.

After leaving the Biltmore, it seems likely that Beth accepted a ride from her killer. Did she know him, or was he a stranger, an average-looking Joe in a suit or military uniform? Beth accepted rides from strangers before. Her youthful hubris may have led her to believe she would know a bad guy if she met one. Like most young women, Beth had likely talked her way out of an unwanted pass before. As women, we learn early how to navigate the occasionally treacherous world of men. The encounter with her killer would be unlike anything in her previous experience. By the time his mask slipped to reveal the evil beneath, Beth did not stand a chance.

On the morning of January 15, 1947, Leimert Park housewife, Betty Bersinger and her little daughter Anne, walked along Norton on the way to run errands. The sidewalks were in, but the houses had yet to be built on that block. The war halted building projects. All materials went to the defense industry.

About fifty feet north of a fire hydrant, Betty noticed something white about a foot from the edge of the sidewalk in the weeds of a large vacant lot. As they drew closer, the thing took shape. It looked like a discarded store mannequin. Then, to her horror, Betty realized what she saw was a nude woman, cut in half and posed with her arms above her head and her legs spread wide apart.

Terrified, Betty grabbed Anne and ran to the nearest house to telephone the police. In her excitement, she failed to identify herself.

LAPD officers arrived, and so did the press. The Herald sent Aggie Underwood. Aggie had been with the paper for twelve years and covered many crime scenes. But this one was different. The level of brutality defied comprehension. The killer posed his victim in a way meant to degrade her. With none of her belongings at the scene to identify her, the authorities labeled the victim as the city’s first Jane Doe of 1947.

Aggie described the scene in her 1949 autobiography, Newspaperwoman.

“In a vacant lot amid sparse weeds a couple of feet from the sidewalk lay the body. It had been cut in half through the abdomen, under the ribs. The two sections were ten or twelve inches apart. The arms, bent at right angles at the elbows, were raised above the shoulders. The legs were spread apart. There were bruises and cuts on the forehead and the face, which had been beaten severely. The hair was blood-matted. Front teeth were missing. Both cheeks were slashed from the corners of the lips almost to the ears. The liver hung out of the torso, and the entire lower section of the body had been hacked, gouged, and unprintably desecrated. It showed sadism at its most frenzied.”

Aggie at the body dump, January 15, 1947.

Aggie studied the body and disagreed with some of the police who argued the deceased was a woman in her mid-thirties. Aggie said the condition of the woman’s skin suggested someone much younger.

A couple of days later, when they identified Jane Doe as Elizabeth Short, Aggie’s contention proved true. Short was only 22-years-old.

The Herald originally tagged the slaying the “Werewolf Murder.” They soon dropped in favor of a much catchier moniker.

Several people took credit for giving the case the name that would stick ‘Black Dahlia.’ Aggie was one of them. While chasing dead-end leads, Aggie said she received a call from a friend, Ray Giese, who was an LAPD homicide detective lieutenant. He said, “This is something you might like, Agness. I’ve found out they called her the ‘Black Dahlia’ around that drug store where she hung out down in Long Beach.”

Short got her nickname after she and some friends saw the film, “The Blue Dahlia,” starring Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, and William Bendix during the summer of 1946. They said because she wore black clothes and frequently tucked a flower behind one ear, she was the “Black Dahlia.”

Once they identified Short, they found the last man seen with her, Robert ‘Red’ Manley. The twenty-five-year-old salesman drove Short up from San Diego and left her at the Biltmore Hotel on January 9^th. He became suspect #1.

Robert “Red” Manley arrested in Eagle Rock. Photo courtesy LAPL.

Early in the morning of January 20^th, Aggie got permission to interview Manley at the Hollenbeck police station on the east side of the city. She sized him up as a guy reporters might meet at a bar and “find a congenial drinking companion, possible criminal or not.”

Aggie said, “You look like you’ve been on a drunk.” Manley replied, “This is worse than any I’ve ever been on.” Perry offered Manley a cigarette, which he accepted with gratitude. Aggie continued. “Look, fella, you’re in one hell of a spot. You’re in a jam and it’s no secret. If you’re innocent, as you say you are, tell the whole story; and if you haven’t anything to hide, people can’t help knowing you’re telling the truth. That way, you’ll get it over with all at once and it won’t be kicking around to cause you more trouble.”

Would Manley open up to Aggie?

NEXT TIME: Red Manley tells his story, and the investigation continues.

Elizabeth Short–January 8-9, 1947

Posted on January 10, 2024 by Deranged

Seventy-seven years ago, on Wednesday, January 8, 1947, Robert ‘Red’ Manley drove to the home of Elvera and Dorothy French in Pacific Beach, in the San Diego area, to pick up a young woman he met a month earlier. Her name was Elizabeth Short.

Red was a twenty-five-year-old salesman and occasional saxophone player, with a wife, Harriette, and 4-month-old baby daughter at home. The couple married on November 28, 1945. They lived in a bungalow court in one of L.A.’s many suburbs.

Red enlisted in the Army on June 24, 1942. In January 1945, he entered a hospital for treatment of a non-traumatic injury, and the Army discharged him in April of the same year for medical reasons

Maybe his injury made it difficult for him to adjust to marriage and parenthood. He said that he and Harriette had “some misunderstandings.” Restless and feeling unsure about his decision to marry, Red decided to “make a little test to see if I were still in love with my wife.” The woman Red used to test his love was twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Short.

Elizabeth Short

On a work trip to San Diego, Red met Beth. She stood a street corner and appeared to need a ride. At first, she seemed reluctant to get into his car. But in an instant, she changed her mind. She introduced herself as Beth Short, and they struck up a conversation. When Red returned to Los Angeles, the two corresponded.

Dorothy French met Beth on the night of December 9, 1946 at the all-night movie theater, the Aztec, on Fifth Avenue. Dorothy worked as a cashier at the ticket window and she noticed Beth, who seemed at loose ends. When her shift ended at 3 a.m., Dorothy offered to take Beth back to the Bayview Terrace Navy housing unit she shared with her mother and a younger brother. Beth was glad to abandon the theater seat for a comfortable sofa.

Weeks passed, and Elvera and Dorothy grew tired of Beth’s couch surfing. She did not contribute to the household, she didn’t even pay for groceries. She received a money order for $100 from a former boyfriend, Gordon Fickling, yet she spent much of her time compulsively writing letters, many of which she never sent.

One of the unsent letters was to Gordon. In the letter dated December 13, 1946, Beth wrote,

“I do hope you ﬁnd a nice girl to kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve. It would have been wonderful if we belonged to each other now. I’ll never regret coming West to see you. You didn’t take me in your arms and keep me there. However, it was nice as long as it lasted.”

The French family had another complaint about their houseguest. Despite her claims, Beth never looked for work. Beth wrote to her mother, Phoebe, that she was working for the Red Cross, or in a VA Hospital, but she lied. Her letters home never revealed her transient lifestyle—nothing about couch surfing, borrowing money to eat, or accepting rides from strange men.

Robert “Red” Manley. Photo courtesy LAPL.

Beth could have found a job if she wanted one. She worked in a delicatessen in Florida as a teenager and at the post exchange (PX) at Camp Cooke (now Vandenberg Air Force Base). Red arranged with a friend of his to get her a job interview—but she didn’t follow-up.

When Red heard from his friend that Beth was a no-show for the job interview, he wrote to her to find out if she was okay. She said she was fine but didn’t like San Diego; she preferred Los Angeles and wanted to return there. Red said he’d help her out.

The drive from San Diego to Los Angeles was Red’s love test. If nothing happened, then he would know that he and Harriette would stay together. Kismet. But if he and Beth clicked, he’d have a decision to make.

Beth and Red weren’t on the road for long before they stopped at a roadside motel for the night. They went out for dinner and drinks before returning to their room to go to bed. Did Red have butterflies in his stomach? How did he want the love test to turn out?

Red must have realized the decision was Beth’s. They never shared more than a kiss. She spent the night in a chair and he took the bed.

The pair left the motel at about 12:20 p.m. on January 9, 1947, for Los Angeles. What did Beth and Red talk about during the couple of hours that it took them to drive back to Los Angeles from San Diego? Red noticed some scratches on her arms and asked her about them. She invented a story about a possessive boyfriend—an Italian man with black hair living in San Diego—who supposedly scratched her. Beth most likely made the scratches herself. She lied to Red a few times more before their day together ended.

The Manleys embrace. Photo courtesy LAPL.

Following a platonic night in the motel room–Red passed his self-administered love test. Lucky Harriette. He still had a problem. He had not called Harriette for a few days. How would he explain his silence? Any guy capable of devising a ridiculous love test could come up with an excuse for being incommunicado for a couple of days.

In my mind’s eye, I see Beth and Red seated across from each other on the bench seat in his Studebaker, each lost in thought. Beth may have wondered what she’d do once she hit L.A. Maybe she’d go to friends in Hollywood. If she was lucky, someone would have an empty bed for her. Her immediate difficulty was Red. How would she get away from the well-meaning guy for whom she felt nothing?

Once they arrived in the city, Beth told Red that she needed to check her luggage at the bus depot. He took her there and Beth was ready to wave goodbye to him and be on her way–but he wouldn’t leave. She insisted she would be fine, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

Beth had a few minutes while she checked her bags to concoct a plan to ditch her shadow. When they returned to his car, she told him she needed to go to the Biltmore Hotel to wait for her sister, Virginia. She lied. Virginia lived in Oakland, hundreds of miles to the north.

Red drove her several blocks to the Biltmore Hotel. The main lobby was on Olive Street, opposite Pershing Square. Beth thanked Red. He had been a gentleman. He’d paid to have taps put on the heels and toes of her pumps, and of course he’d paid for meals and the motel room. She thought he would drive off and leave her, but again, he said that he didn’t feel comfortable putting her out of the car on her own.

He parked, and the two of them waited in the Biltmore’s lobby for a couple of hours. Finally, Red realized he couldn’t wait any longer. He said he had to go. She told him she would be fine, and that she expected her sister to arrive at any moment.

Red left her at around 6:30 p.m. Beth watched him go–gave him a few minutes, and then she exited the hotel and turned south down Olive Street.

It is possible that she was heading to the Crown Grill at Eighth and Olive. She’d been there before and perhaps she hoped to bump into someone she knew; after all, she needed a place to stay.

This is a frame from B-roll of downtown Los Angeles. Do you see the Crown?

When asked if they’d seen Beth, most of the patrons were reluctant to talk to the police because the bar led a double life. By day, it catered to the lunch crowd. Dark enough to be cozy for cocktails for a man escorting a woman, not his wife. By night, the clientele shifted to gay men. With homosexuality being illegal, the opportunities for men to meet were limited.

No one who will talk could say for sure that Beth was in the bar on the 9th—and if she was there, no one saw her leave.

That no one missed Beth is tragic. She had no family here, and no close friends. She was the perfect prey. Without any credible sightings, it is probable that Beth’s killer held her captive from January 9th until the morning of January 15th, when he took her life. What did he say to her? Did she plead for her life? It is absolutely horrifying to consider.

NEXT TIME: A werewolf on the loose.

Aggie Underwood–Newspaperwoman

Posted on December 31, 2023 by Deranged

On October 27, 1936, in a special edition celebrating the Herald’s twenty-fifth anniversary as an evening daily, city editor John B.T. Campbell wrote this about Aggie Underwood:

“Aggie Underwood should have been a man. A rip-snorting, go-gettum reporter who goes through fire lines trails killers . . . using anything from airplanes to mules to reach the spot that in newspapers is . . . marked with an arrow or an X. What a gal! Usually followed by one or two photographers who . . . get lost when unable to keep up with this speedy lady. Favorite occupation is following a good murder. Favorite story, a good murder. Favorite photograph, a good murder. Favorite fate for all editors, good murder. Help!”

Today we may struggle with the “should have been a man” comment, but at that time it was high praise. Aggie was still new at the Herald, starting in January 1935. She undeniably made an impression on the newsroom. She recalled those early days as “happy-go-lucky.” The reporters worked hard and played just as hard; often going in a group to Chinatown for dinner, or gathering at a bar in Pico Gulch (about half a block from the office, on Pico between Figueroa and Georgia streets).

1931 photo shows the Goodyear blimp “Volunteer” soaring over the Evening Herald building to pick up a bundle of Twentieth Birthday editions for delivery to officials at city hall.

In her work, Aggie made it a point never to ask for special treatment because she was a woman. One night, she arrived at a brush fire in Malibu. A Sheriff’s deputy stopped her. “It makes no difference if you are a reporter. No woman can go in there.” She was considering her next move when she heard a man’s voice. He addressed the deputy, “It’s all right, lad. She’s been to a hell of a lot more of these things than you ever have. Go on through, Aggie.”

The voice belonged to Sheriff’s Department Inspector Norris G. Stensland, one of my favorite LA law enforcement officers.

Aggie worked well with law enforcement. She took the time to write to an officer’s superior to express how helpful he was. In this way, she built long-standing relationships based on mutual respect. Reporters like Aggie have a lot in common with detectives. Each knows the value of maintaining their composure and assessing a scene. Both cops and reporters know the value of developing informants.

One time, on a tip, Aggie arrived at the scene of a love-triangle murder. The cop at the door refused entry to Aggie, not because she was a reporter, but because she was a woman. “You can’t go in there, lady. It’s pretty bad in there. It’s no place for a woman. It’s a mess of blood all over.” Paul Dorsey, a Herald photographer who was with her, said to the officer, “Don’t worry about her. She can take it. Worry about me. Chances are that I can’t.”

In August 1935, Aggie got a tip that LAPD detectives planned to search the home of a woman accused of shooting and gravely wounding her husband at a dinner party days earlier. Aggie arrived before detectives Aldo Corsini and Thad Brown, who sought the pistol used by the woman. Aggie said the detectives were concerned about entering the home because of a huge gaunt German Shepherd. Nobody had fed or given water to the poor thing since the arrest of his mistress. The dog, frightened and stressed, barked from behind a window.

Victim of shooting interviewed by Aldo Corsini and Thad Brown. Photo courtesy UCLA digital collection.

Aggie had an epiphany. “Look, Thad, Corsini and I will go to the back door and make one hell of a noise and distract the dog. While we’re doing that, Thad, you go in through the window, right there beside the front door, then unlock the front door and rush out. I’ll go in then and tame your dog; I’m not afraid of him.”

Aggie heard dogs are aggressive when they are afraid of taller, bigger humans who seem threatening. She figured the best way to approach the frightened animal would be to get down to his level. Corsini wasn’t about to get on his knees to confront the dog, and neither was Brown, but Aggie refused to retreat. Facing the dog, Aggie talked to him in a soft voice, and cautiously moved her hand toward his head. She petted his head gently and said, “What’s the matter, fellow? You hungry and thirsty?” The big dog whimpered. Aggie stood up and went to the kitchen sink to fill his bowl with water. She set out some food for him, too. He became her shadow. He followed Aggie around the house while the detectives searched for the gun, which they found in a laundry bag. The woman later went to prison for attempted murder.

Thad Brown promoted to captain of homicide/chief of detectives. The rank and file would have made him chief of police if politics hadn’t put William Parker in the office instead. Aggie said for years Brown blushed when asked if he had tamed any wild dogs lately.

Aggie’s cordial relations with police provided her with exclusive stories. She rolled up to a house in Eagle Rock one afternoon after getting a report of a double mystery death. Several LAPD homicide detectives stood around outside, waiting for the living room to air out. Aggie said after ten days, the corpses were ripe. The couple died in the middle of a sex act on the living room couch. Detectives weren’t sure whether they had a murder-suicide or an accident. Aggie wanted to catch the Herald’s next deadline, so she made a deal with Captain H. H. Bert Wallis. They identified the dead man, but they still didn’t know the woman’s identity. No detective wanted to enter the house until the smell dissipated. Aggie said she would brave the stench and retrieve the woman’s handbag, which sat on a table visible from outside.

The woman was nude except for a slip rolled up to her chest. The man, in his union-suit, had fallen to the floor. His penis had burst, and Aggie had to step over him to reach the handbag. She tried to hold her breath, but the smell of decaying flesh was pervasive, clinging to her favorite brown wool dress. Aggie grabbed the purse and handed it to Wallis. In gratitude, he gave her a head start on the story. It turned out the man met the woman in a bar, brought her home, and they died of carbon monoxide poisoning because of a faulty heater.

Aggie loved the brown wool dress. She saw it in a shop window and bought it on lay-away. In a conversation with Aggie’s daughter, years later, I learned the fate of the dress. Mary Evelyn told me Aggie came home that night, peeled off the dress and burned it in the fireplace, saying, “I’ll never the smell of death out of it.”

Aggie at the Black Dahlia body dump, January 15, 1947.

During her career, Aggie reported on hundreds of crimes. The most infamous of them began on the morning of January 15, 1947.

Aggie claimed to be the first reporter at the body dump site on Norton near 39^th in Leimert Park. She was likely one of the first. It scarcely matters now. The deceased was a young woman, naked and obscenely posed. Her head is north, her legs spread and point south. A couple of days later, they identified the woman as twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Short from Medford, Massachusetts. She became known as the Black Dahla.

Aggie interviewed the initial suspect in the grisly murder, Robert “Red” Manley. She sized him up and concluded he was not the killer. Despite an intense investigation, the case remains unsolved.

This post concludes my month-long tribute to Aggie, who inspired me to create this blog eleven years ago.

Aggie in her early days as city editor. Note the baseball bat on her desk. She said she kept the bat to deal with Hollywood press agents.

As we bid adieu to 2023, and prepare for new challenges in 2024, I thank you so much for your continued readership. This blog is one of my passions. I love relating true tales from L.A.’s past. Crime is banal, but the people who commit crime are endlessly fascinating. I’ve begun exploring stories for the upcoming year—there are some excellent ones. Within the next several days, I will begin my annual coverage of the Black Dahlia case, so stay tuned.

Happy New Year!

Black Dahlia: The Investigation Continues

Posted on January 19, 2023 by Deranged

LAPD detectives Harry Hansen and Finis Brown headed the investigation into Elizabeth Short’s murder. The case was challenging from the moment they arrived on Norton Street. The lack of physical evidence at the body dump site posed a problem.

A skillfully retouched photo of Elizabeth Short at the body dump site.

Police officers knocked on doors and interviewed hundreds of citizens to find the place where Beth was murdered, but they were unsuccessful.

The Herald-Express cruelly tricked Beth’s mother, Phoebe, into believing that her much loved daughter was a beauty contest winner, only to be told minutes later that she was a murder victim.

Phoebe Short at Beth’s inquest. Photo courtesy LAPL.

Murder victims lose their right to privacy; every secret revealed. To fill column space while reporters tracked multiple leads, the Herald looked to psychiatrists, Beth’s acquaintances, and even mystery writers, to speculate on the case, which they did with creative abandon.

The Herald sought the opinion of LAPD’s shrink. Dr. Paul De River. He wrote a series of articles for the paper in which he attempted to analyze the mind of the killer. De River wrote the killer was a sadist and suggested that: “during the killing episode, he had an opportunity to pump up effect two sources — from his own sense of power and in overcoming the resistance of another. He was the master, and the victim was the slave”.

In a chilling statement, De River hinted at necrophilia—he said: “It must also be remembered that sadists of this type have a super-abundance of curiosity and are liable to spend much time with their victims after the spark of life has flickered and died.”

Reporters interviewed people who had only a fleeting acquaintance with Beth. They weighed in on everything from her hopes and dreams to her love life. Beth was, by turns, described as “a man-crazy delinquent”, and a girl with “childlike charm and beauty”. Many people who claimed to be close to her said that she aspired to Hollywood stardom. The claim Beth longed to be a star is a myth, likely based on letters she wrote to her mother. Beth wanted to keep the truth of her life in Southern California from her mother; for instance accepting rides from strangers and moving constantly. No mother wants to hear that, so the Hollywood lie came easily. A believable fiction when you are young and pretty. The interviews yielded nothing of value in the hunt for the killer.

While working at Camp Cooke, Beth Short was voted “Camp Cutie.”

While the experts opined, Aggie canvassed Southern California for leads. She was twelve years into her career with the Herald-Express when the Black Dahlia case broke. In her 1949 autobiography, Newspaperwoman, she said she came across Elizabeth’s nickname when she checked in with Ray Giese, an LAPD homicide detective-lieutenant. According to Aggie, Giese said, “This is something you might like, Agness. I’ve found out they called her the ‘Black Dahlia’ around that drug store where she hung out down in Long Beach.” She immediately dropped the ‘Werewolf’ tag.

Aggie interviews a woman (unrelated to Dahlia case.)

A few days passed and police located the mystery man, Robert M. Manley, known by his nickname, Red. Early on the morning of January 20, 1947, Aggie interviewed the 25-year-old salesman. The first thing she said to him was, “You look as if you’ve been on a drunk.” Manley replied, “This is worse than any I’ve ever been on.”

Robert “Red” Manley busted in Eagle Rock. Note his wedding ring. I wonder if he wore it when he gave Beth a ride. Photo courtesy of LAPL.

Aggie told him he was in one hell of a spot and advised him to come clean. Harry S. Fremont, an LAPD homicide detective, looked over at Manley and said, “She’s right, I’ve known this lady for a long time, on lots of big cases, and I can tell you she won’t do you wrong.”

Manley told his story, and Aggie was smart enough not to interrupt him. Red said he picked Beth up on a San Diego street corner early in December. He confessed that the night he spent with Beth in a roadside motel was strictly platonic and concluded with, “I’ll never pick up another dame as long as I live.”

The story ran in the Herald with the headline: “Night In a Motel”, and Aggie got the byline. She was the only Los Angeles reporter to get a byline in the case.

The morning following her interview with Red Manley, her editor yanked Aggie off of the case. She said, “… the city editor benched me and let me sit in the local room without a blessed thing to do.”

The no-assignment routine resumed the next day. Aggie said she sat for about three hours, then started on an embroidery project. Every person who saw Aggie with her embroidery hoop roared with laughter. She kept at it until quitting time.

Day three—Aggie prepared for more embroidery when the assistant city editor that told her that because of an overnight decision, she was to go back to LAPD homicide and continue working leads.

Aggie barely had time to pull out her notebook out of her handbag before management pulled her off the case again. This time, permanently. Aggie’s new assignment—city editor. Nobody was more shocked than Aggie. She deserved the promotion. With 20 years in the newspaper business, she possessed the necessary skill set to be an effective editor. She became one of the first women in the United States to hold a city editorship on a major metropolitan daily. She enjoyed running the editor’s desk, and did a phenomenal job, but she confessed she missed being in the field chasing a story.

One of the conspiracy theories that surrounds Beth’s murder involves Aggie. Some believe she got too close to a solution in the murder, and the killer(s) arranged to have her promoted out of the way. That means whoever murdered Beth had enough juice with the Herald to influence personnel decisions. I think that is nonsense. The paper’s owner, William Randolph Hearst, had no reason to tamper with Aggie’s successful coverage. Additionally, as city editor, Aggie handed out assignments and directed the activities of all the reporters in the newsroom. She knew everything they uncovered. The timing of Aggie’s promotion is a sidebar, not a conspiracy.

NEXT TIME: The Black Dahlia case goes cold — or does it?

Black Dahlia—January 8, 1947

Posted on January 8, 2023 by Deranged

This post begins my annual coverage of the unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia.

Seventy-six years ago, on January 8, 1947, Robert ‘Red’ Manley drove to the home of Elvera and Dorothy French in Pacific Beach, in the San Diego area, to pick up a young woman he’d met a month earlier. Her name was Elizabeth Short.

Red enlisted in the Army on June 24, 1942. He was 20 years-old. In January 1945, He entered a hospital for treatment of a non-traumatic injury, and the Army discharged him in April of the same year for medical reasons—but not for any residual condition.

Red traveled for his job and it was on a trip to San Diego that he met Elizabeth. She was standing on a street corner and appeared to need a ride. At first, she seemed reluctant to get into his car. But in an instant, she changed her mind and got in. She introduced herself as Beth Short, and they struck up a conversation. When Red returned to Los Angeles, the two corresponded.

Dorothy French met Beth on the night of December 9, 1946 at the all-night movie theater, the Aztec, on Fifth Avenue. Dorothy worked as a cashier at the ticket window and she noticed Beth seemed at loose ends. When her shift ended at 3 a.m., Dorothy offered to take Beth back to the Bayview Terrace Navy housing unit she shared with her mother and a younger brother. Beth was glad to abandon the theater seat for a comfortable sofa.

Weeks passed, and Elvera and Dorothy grew tired of Beth’s couch surfing and contributing nothing to the household. She didn’t even pay for groceries. She received a money order for $100 from a former boyfriend, Gordon Fickling, yet she spent much of her time compulsively writing letters, many of which she never sent.

One of the unsent letters was to Gordon. In the letter dated December 13, 1946, Beth wrote:

“I do hope you ﬁnd a nice girl to kiss at midnight on new years eve. It would have been wonderful if we belonged to each other now. I’ll never regret coming West to see you. You didn’t take me in your arms and keep me there. However, it was nice as long as it lasted.”

The French family had another complaint about their house guest—despite her claims, there was no evidence that Beth ever looked for work. Beth wrote to her mother, Phoebe, that she was working for the Red Cross, or in a VA Hospital, but it was just one of her many lies. Her letters home never revealed her transient lifestyle—nothing about couch surfing, borrowing money to eat, or accepting rides from strange men.

Robert “Red” Manley. Photo likely taken by Perry Fowler. Courtesy LAPL.

Red must have realized the decision was Beth’s. They never shared more than a kiss. She spent the night in a chair and he took the bed.

The pair left the motel at about 12:20 p.m. on January 9, 1947, for Los Angeles.

Next time: The Black Dahlia–Last Seen

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