Elizabeth Short

Elizabeth Short's mother was Phoebe May Sawyer (1897-1992), a professional bookkeeper. Phoebe was 95-years-old at the time of her death, and survived Elizabeth by 45 years.

Elizabeth Short was born July 29th, 1924, in Medford, Massachusetts, to Phoebe and Cleo Short. When she was five her father disappeared; his car was later found near a lake, apparently abandoned, which led to the belief that he had committed suicide. However, he later appeared at home and apologized to his wife for leaving the family like that. Nevertheless, she wouldn't take him back, and he left the family again and moved to the West Coast. Elizabeth developed a passion for movies in her youth, and when she turned 19 she decided to visit her father in California. She stayed with him for a while, but it wasn't long before he kicked her out for "not doing anything with her life"; apparently he also wasn't enamored of the fact that Elizabeth was dating a lot of different men. After moving out, Elizabeth traveled to Santa Barbara where she was arrested for underage drinking and sent back home to Massachusetts.

Eluzabeth Short had a lung surgery in 1939, when 15-years-old. She was suffering from bronchitis and severe asthma attacks. While she reportedly recovered, she continued to take precautions for further respiratory problems.

After hearing a police radio dispatch of officers to a vacant lot on Norton Avenue, Los Angeles Examiner reporter Will Fowler and his photographer assistant were the first on the scene after Betty Bersinger had called police. Bersinger, who discovered the body while pushing her 3-year-old daughter Anne in a carriage down Norton, had called police to report "a drunk man lying in the weeds," which Bersinger claims she did in the hopes of not involving herself with the dead body, despite leaving her correct phone number when asked by police. Reporter Fowler claims that he closed Elizabeth Short's half-opened eyes just before police arrived. At this point, Short was not identified, so the Examiner agreed with police to send fingerprints by wire photo for quick identification in exchange for an exclusive on breaking the news of the identity of the body. The next day, Short was identified from fingerprints taken in 1943 when she was arrested in Santa Barbara as a minor who was illegally in a bar.

During World War II, Elizabeth Short became engaged to Major Matthew Michael Gordon, Jr., a decorated Army Air Force officer at the 2nd Air Commando Group. Gordon was killed in a plane crash on August 10, 1945, and the marriage never took place. Short had no steady relationships for the next 2 years, and was still single at the time of her death in 1947.

She returned to southern California in 1946.

Was last seen alive January 9, 1947, when she went to meet her sister at The Regal Biltmore Hotel (506 South Grand Avenue) in Los Angeles.

New England monument erected in Medford, Massachusetts on July 29, 1993, by documentary filmmaker Kyle J. Wood on what would have been her 69th birthday.

In 2003 a retired Los Angeles Police Dept. homicide detective, Steve Hodel, found several pictures of her among papers left by his late father George, a former surgeon. Upon further investigation, he discovered that his father had been a prime suspect in her murder. The police at the time believed that because her body had been so precisely dismembered, only a skilled physician could have done it. George Hodel was not only a surgeon but it turned out that he had been carrying on an affair with her. After police initially questioned him about his relationship he fled the country to the Philippines, abandoning his family, and never returned. Steven Hodel now believes that his father was actually a serial killer who murdered at least a dozen women, including her, and that he fled the country because he was tipped off that he was a suspect in her murder by corrupt police with whom he was running an illegal abortion practice.

This infamous murder has been the subject of intense and sometimes bizarre speculation and theorizing. At least six authors claim to have solved the murder, each offering a different solution. Two separate and unrelated people have published sensationalistic books claiming that their fathers committed the crime. Another author suggested filmmaker Orson Welles as the killer. Author and screenwriter Donald H. Wolf has written yet another book on the case, to be published in 2005, promising to implicate an as-yet-unnamed "Hollywood mogul" in the crime.