Black Dahlia mystery grazes Gilroy
On Jan. 15, 1947, the severed body of Elizabeth Short was found
in the Leimert Park neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles. The
23 year-old victim, who became known as The Black Dahlia, had been
cut in half at the waist, her mutilated body left abandoned in an
empty lot. Her murder, unsolved over the years, has long been the
subject of crime novels, films, television dramas, and even song
lyrics.
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Black Dahlia mystery grazes Gilroy
On Jan. 15, 1947, the severed body of Elizabeth Short was found in the Leimert Park neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles. The 23 year-old victim, who became known as The Black Dahlia, had been cut in half at the waist, her mutilated body left abandoned in an empty lot. Her murder, unsolved over the years, has long been the subject of crime novels, films, television dramas, and even song lyrics.
When investigators began trying to unravel who Elizabeth Short was, how her murder had taken place, and by whom, they discovered a “missing week” from the time she had vanished, Jan. 9, 1947 and the date her body was found on Jan. 15. Tales of alleged sightings filled news reports and had Los Angeles County detectives following up numerous dead ends. The investigations went on for years.
Elizabeth Short received the nickname, the Black Dahlia, apparently for her curly, black mane, her fondness for dressing in black, and a photo showing her with dahlias in her hair. The name apparently dated to 1946 and coincided with a popular movie called “The Blue Dahlia,” starring Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd. Some believe the tag was assigned after her death by newspaper reporters to keep up the public interest in her ongoing murder investigation.
The press, and police investigators, had a field day looking into Short’s background. Although many details of her life are clouded, it was known that before coming to Los Angeles, the Massachusetts native had spent time in Florida. At age 19, she moved across the nation to live in Vallejo. By 1943 she had moved to Los Angeles, later taking a waitress job at Lompoc. By the end of the year she was in Santa Barbara.
Still underage, she got into trouble with authorities, returned to Massachusetts and from there divided her time between her home state and Florida, where she met and became engaged to an Air Force officer. After her fiance’s death in 1945 during World War II, Short went back to Southern California, and soon hooked up with another military officer.
For the next six months, she was something of a drifter, living in temporary accommodations for brief periods. The last time anyone saw her was on January 9, 1947, at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown L.A. One week later, her body was discovered, brutally hacked and severed, in a lot on South Norton Avenue.
A complicated series of events in the long hunt and successive round-up of murder suspects included folk singer Woodie Guthrie, screen actor Orson Welles, several prominent Los Angeles physicians, a number of District Attorneys and the publisher of the Los Angeles Times.
Two years after the murder, investigations extended briefly to Gilroy. Acting on a request by the San Francisco Police Department, Gilroy Police Captain Harold Sturla on Jan. 11, 1949 went to a local address and arrested 40-year-old Jeff Connors. The bit-part actor, freelance screen writer and Hollywood cosmetics salesman claimed to have been visiting friends in town, along with a girlfriend who gave her name as Dorothy Cahoon.
Upon initial police questioning, Connors claimed he had known Elizabeth Short before her death, even if just by sight. He said he had seen her at a Los Angeles bar the night before her murder, and he had telephoned police with that information. But he swore innocence of the actual crime. His alibi was that on the night of the murder, he was with his ex-wife, a blonde dancer named Vickie Evans.
Ironically, Evans’ name had appeared in sensational newspaper headlines the day before Connors’ arrest. She had been brought in on charges over an involvement with screen actor Robert Mitchum, in a much-publicized marijuana case.
Soon Connors’ alibis began to unravel about his whereabouts on the night of the Black Dahlia murder. When contacted by authorities at her home in New York, Vickie Evans said she had no idea who Jeff Connors was. Authorities in the Screen Writers Guild, the Actors Guild, Columbia Studios, where Connors claimed to have worked, and the Screen Extras Guild turned up no record that he had ever been associated with any of the agencies.
After San Francisco investigators discovered Connors’ real name was Arthur H. Lane, he was taken to Los Angeles for further detention. He confessed to a connection with another murder suspect named Leslie Dillon, alias Jack Sands, also held by the Los Angeles Police. Dillon, at least briefly, had used Connors’ name, adding to the identity confusion. Authorities then located Connors’ supposed real ex-wife, Mrs. Grace Allen, who claimed that, indeed, he had been freelancing at Columbia Studios on the night of the murder.
Upon rechecking the employment records, Columbia Studios found that Connors had been only a day laborer, for a short period, at some time in the past. But before long, both Dillon and Connors were released from detention for lack of sufficient evidence.
Just a short list of the public’s fascination with the unsolved Black Dahlia murder during the past 60 years includes a 1975 made-for-television film starring Lucie Arnaz, several crime novels and “tell-all” books based on the murder, a just-released Brian De Palma film titled “The Black Dahlia,” featuring Scarlett Johanssen and Hillary Swank, an interactive computer game called Black Dahlia, art works, popular song themes and even a band group named The Black Dahlia Murder.
Actor Robert Mitchum milked a bit of publicity out of his timely bit part in the news headlines with Connors’ supposed ex-wife, Vickie Evans. The up-and-coming Hollywood star gained release from the Los Angeles County jail work farm in March 1949 after serving 50 days of a 60-day sentence for marijuana possession.
“It was a relief to get away for awhile,” he told reporters, adding that it was the first vacation he’d had in seven years. Jail authorities said Mitchum had been a model prisoner, and a hard worker.
