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Elizabeth Short (July 29, 1924 - January 14 or 15, 1947), known posthumously as "the Black Dahlia", was an American woman who was found murdered in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Her case became highly publicized due to the graphic nature of the crime, which entailed her corpse having been mutilated and severed at the waist. A native of Boston, Short had spent her early life in Massachusetts and Florida before relocating to California, where her father lived.

Many true crime books claim that Short lived in or visited Los Angeles at various times in the mid-1940s, including Gilmore's Severed, which claims Short worked at the Hollywood Canteen. This is disputed by Harnisch, who states that Short did not, in fact, live in Los Angeles until after the canteen's closing in 1945. Although some of her acquaintances and several authors and journalists described Short as a call girl or a prostitute during her time in Los Angeles, according to journalist Larry Harnisch, contemporaneous grand jury proved that there was no existing evidence that she was ever a prostitute. It attributes the claim to confusion with another woman with the same name. Harnisch claims that the rumor regarding Short's history as a prostitute originates from John Gregory Dunne's 1977 novel True Confessions, which is based in part on the crime. Another widely circulated rumor (sometimes used to counter claims that Short was a prostitute) holds that Short was unable to have sexual intercourse because of a congenital defect that resulted in "infantile genitalia". Los Angeles County district attorney's files state that the investigators had questioned three men with whom Short had engaged in sex, including a Chicago police officer who was a suspect in the case; FBI files on the case also contain a statement from one of Short's alleged lovers. Short's autopsy itself, which was reprinted in full in Michael Newton's 2009 book The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes, notes that her uterus was "small"; however, no other information in the autopsy is provided that would suggest her reproductive organs were anything other than anatomically normal. The autopsy also states that Short was not and had never been pregnant, contrary to what had been claimed prior to and following her death. Another rumor--that Short was a lesbian--has often circulated; according to John Gilmore, this rumor began after Herald-Express reporter Bevo Means was told by the deputy coroner that Short "wasn't having sex with men" due to her purportedly "small" genitalia. Means took this to mean that Short had sex with women, and both he and reporter Sid Hughes began fruitlessly investigating gay bars in Los Angeles for further information.
Black Dahlia