The Black Dahlia and The Blue Dahlia

Trelstad, Mondragon, Asher and Norton were significantly intoxicated late at night and were approached because they appeared to be easy prey. Elevated alcohol levels are critical factors in the Jeanne French and Evelyn Winters murders. Being sober didn't save Elizabeth Short or Louise Springer or Gladys Kern. Alcohol plays no role in those deaths and to me that is indicative of a very different predator.

Elizabeth had fantasies of a husband to marry. The Black Dahlia Avenger had fantasies of a victim to torture.

I explore the death of Elizabeth Short with a mindful eye on the noir culture of the Los Angeles

The Examiner has written the Headline to remember. The Los Angeles Times wrote a headline to forget.

Within hours the FBI identifies Elizabeth Short as the victim based on her arrest for underaged drinking at the bar of the El Paseo Restaurant.  This arrest photo is the one commonly used on book covers and in magazines.

The headlines claim a "Werewolf" stalks the city, but this the Black Dahlia is best compared to the bisected murder committed by the Trunk Murderess a decade previously.

The search for “Red” is over.  Robert Manley is under arrest and co-operating with the Los Angeles Police.

"It sounds like a cheap detective thriller," said Capt. Jack Donohoe of the homicide squad, "but we finally were forced to turn to the theory that a woman was at the bottom of it." (Donohoe) pointed to other mutilation murders In which women In jealous rages hacked their girl friends to death.

An unknown man threatened the life of Sultry Toni Smith, who now lives in the Hollywood apartment once shared by Miss Short. The brunette beauty, her lips trembling with fear, said she answered the telephone in Apartment 501 last night to hear a strange man's gruff voice say: 'Well Toni. you are next.”

This is a significant topic that has been ignored by other researchers.

The Black Dahlia Avenger letter to the LAPD has fingerprints that are not on file. Confessors make headlines. One More Thing: The Georgette Bauerdorf murder is discussed. Fingerprint evidence has no match in this case either.

When I compare the torture murder of Elizabeth Short to the mutilation murder of Jeanne French there are many differences. As I look at the crime, the police should have come closer to catching the murderer.

More lone women victims, more confessions but no more closer to finding the Black Dahlia Avenger

The false imprisonment of Leslie Dillon by Dr. J. Paul DeRiver and the Gangster Squad embarrassed the already tarnished LAPD