The Black Dahlia - The Long and "Short" Of It
Mary Lanphier
August 30, 2006
As Universal Pictures presents "The Black Dahlia" in theatres on September 15, journalistic news shows and writers jump on the bandwagon.
Discovered in Los Angeles, CA, on January 15, 1947, Elizabeth "Bette" Short was found in a vacant Hollywood lot. Nude, cut in half, bruised and beaten, the Elizabeth Short case remains Hollywood's most famous unsolved murder.
Although it brings to light a number of possible solutions, movies such as this often raise more questions than they answer.
We also can't forget JonBenet Ramsey, as John Mark Karr's bizarre claims throws this famous unsolved murder back in the forefront of the news.
The true tragedy, however, lies in the unsolved murders that don't have the press coverage of the minds and money of Hollywood producers.
Perform a search on any search engine for "unsolved homicides" and thousands of pages appear. Sure, some of them are personal pages but the majority are state sites.
At any given time, there are unsolved murders in every state. Are they given the press coverage they deserve? Movie rights? Are books and articles written about them? Sadly, the answer is, usually not.
Is it because these unknown cases aren't as heinous as the famous ones?
According to author Stacy Horn, The NYPD’s Central Records Division has a warehouse in Brooklyn where they store, among other things, 187 boxes full of case records for unsolved homicides spanning the years 1921 to 1973. Some boxes have a few cases, some have thirty or more. They may be falling apart from age, but there are probably 4,000 to 7,000 case files there. The box marked "1921" has several cases from the early twenties including the following four cold cases: Cecil E. Landon, a 19 year old from Portland who was murdered just after returning from military service in France, 12-year-old Virginia Walker who was murdered on her way to buy cream, 17-year-old Ream Constance Hoxsie who was hit in the head with a hammer eight times, then posed on a bed, and the severed head of an unknown Italian man that was found in Bronx Zoological Park by two boys looking for fresh water crabs. Several days later, two women searching the same area for mushrooms found the torso.
In my opinion, these cases have all the "qualities" of The Black Dahlia case. Yet, these cases remain in tattered folders in a cold, damp basement.
In Alabama, for instance, the 2005 statistics (the latest available) show that out of 331 homicides, only 220 were solved. That leaves 34% unsolved. Could one of these be the next Elizabeth Short case? I guess it depends on the publicity.
While I'm glad that Elizabeth Short's murder is being looked at again, though in the media, it IS being looked at.
I wonder what it would take to bring these other thousands of unsolved murders to the desks of already overworked detectives. A pretty face? High publicity? Provoked city officials? You tell me.
Discovered in Los Angeles, CA, on January 15, 1947, Elizabeth "Bette" Short was found in a vacant Hollywood lot. Nude, cut in half, bruised and beaten, the Elizabeth Short case remains Hollywood's most famous unsolved murder.
Although it brings to light a number of possible solutions, movies such as this often raise more questions than they answer.
We also can't forget JonBenet Ramsey, as John Mark Karr's bizarre claims throws this famous unsolved murder back in the forefront of the news.
The true tragedy, however, lies in the unsolved murders that don't have the press coverage of the minds and money of Hollywood producers.
Perform a search on any search engine for "unsolved homicides" and thousands of pages appear. Sure, some of them are personal pages but the majority are state sites.
At any given time, there are unsolved murders in every state. Are they given the press coverage they deserve? Movie rights? Are books and articles written about them? Sadly, the answer is, usually not.
Is it because these unknown cases aren't as heinous as the famous ones?
According to author Stacy Horn, The NYPD’s Central Records Division has a warehouse in Brooklyn where they store, among other things, 187 boxes full of case records for unsolved homicides spanning the years 1921 to 1973. Some boxes have a few cases, some have thirty or more. They may be falling apart from age, but there are probably 4,000 to 7,000 case files there. The box marked "1921" has several cases from the early twenties including the following four cold cases: Cecil E. Landon, a 19 year old from Portland who was murdered just after returning from military service in France, 12-year-old Virginia Walker who was murdered on her way to buy cream, 17-year-old Ream Constance Hoxsie who was hit in the head with a hammer eight times, then posed on a bed, and the severed head of an unknown Italian man that was found in Bronx Zoological Park by two boys looking for fresh water crabs. Several days later, two women searching the same area for mushrooms found the torso.
In my opinion, these cases have all the "qualities" of The Black Dahlia case. Yet, these cases remain in tattered folders in a cold, damp basement.
In Alabama, for instance, the 2005 statistics (the latest available) show that out of 331 homicides, only 220 were solved. That leaves 34% unsolved. Could one of these be the next Elizabeth Short case? I guess it depends on the publicity.
While I'm glad that Elizabeth Short's murder is being looked at again, though in the media, it IS being looked at.
I wonder what it would take to bring these other thousands of unsolved murders to the desks of already overworked detectives. A pretty face? High publicity? Provoked city officials? You tell me.
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