Murder With Friends: Black Dahlia

In Membership, Murder With Friends - On Demand by Gigi Manukyan20 Comments

Grace Baldridge and actress, Sara Spadacene discuss the “Black Dahlia” murder of actress, Elizabeth Short. Her mutilated body was found in a ditch with all the blood drained out. The duo discuss the suspicious circumstances surrounding her case and the many suspects.

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  1. Oooo! I am totally diggin’ MWF!!!
    So, I have been a Noir Fan for a long, long time and, thanks to James Ellroy’s “LA Quartet,” I began an obsessive dive into the true Story of The Black Dahlia. Over the years, I have read countless books claiming they knew who killed her. I never thought I would agree with any of these books, but would be interesting to read and at the very least be entertaining.
    I can honestly say the mass majority are total garbage. Even though he is hailed by many as the ultimate authority on the Black Dahlia, John Gilmore, who wrote the book “Severed” was the worst! It’s bulging at the seams with blatant lies that can be easily disproven. He seemed to focus on the “Hearstian” style sensationalism and, in doing so, the fact that she was actually human and her life mattered got lost. I think that’s a huge mistake for any True Crimes author. You have to keep the reader reminded that. The connection of subject to reader is critical. Without humanizing the victim it starts to slope into plain old macabre, necromancy, murder porn. So, not only did his story fail the basic fact test, but it was also poorly written and did nothing, but drudge up a bunch of nonsense and victim blaming.
    Author Troy Taylor’s book “Fallen Angel” is a bit heavy on the Hollywood Golden Aged name dropping, which again heads in the direction of sensationalism. However, as many times as I’ve seen the death photos, the author filled this book up with pictures of Elizabeth’s life. Those pictures were the ones that truly shook me!The author went above and beyond connecting the reader with a vulnerable 22 year old girl that just happen to cross paths with a serial killer. (Heavy influence on “Serial Killer” because people need to realize this was not a one time murder in LA during that time period. They call them The Lone Woman Murders and like Elizabeth’s case, none of them have been solved. I think the reason Elizabeth’s case became so huge in the media while the others went somewhat unnoticed was the level of mutilation, the obvious posing of her body for maximum exposure of such a ghastly sight, and the murderer’s communication/taunting the authorities. This was the first case since Jack the Ripper that a killer made contact with the police and taunted them multiple times. The other women murdered were killed in horrible ways, don’t get me wrong, but bisection is obviously much more horrific.) Getting back to “Fallen Angel,” the contents are cherry picked bits of information that have been public knowledge for a looooong time, but he sets up his target very early on and molds those bits of information to make a very loose case. I cant emphasize enough the impact the pictures of Elizabeth alive. Someone worked their ass of to obtain them and gave her an identity that one can feel heartache for. Maybe all the true crimes books I’ve read have desensitized me toward crime scenes, but the normality in those pictures stuck a cord in me that I still can’t shake. It made me into an advocate for a person that deserves justice despite how many years have gone by or whether her killer(s) are still alive or dead.
    Finally, the last book I wanted to discuss is Steve Hodel’s “The Black Dahlia Avenger.” You touched on him briefly, but I would HIGHLY suggest reading this book and all of the updates and new books. In an update to this book acknowledges that I of the 2 photos is definitely not her and with all the evidence her lays out the other photo is irrelevant to his findings. As an artist and classic movie aficionado the array of his father, Dr. George Hill Hodel’s, cast of titans of the silver screen, Dadaist, Surrealists, 1920s beatniks, and their shared interest in Marquis de Sade, especially his ideas about unrestrained morality as a liberation of sexual freedom, makes me more than a little suspicious of, at least some level of devious behavior within this group of friends. It did completely change my views and feelings about The Dada/Surrealists. I naively assumed their philosophies about the dream world, pushing the limits of art, and their mutual one-upmanship was more or less just talk, lively conversation among artists who were literally at the forefront of sexual revolution. Yes, that revolution would reach it’s peak decades later, but the 20s and 30s was definitely not a chaste or virtuous. Yet even with all the art history I do know, these revelations floored me. Mainly because its believable. My rose tinted views of some of my art heroes were shattered by reading this book. That’s not a bad thing and neither are Steve’s Books. He lays out a pretty solid case that I have had trouble disputing and, best of all, he will gladly admit if he’s wrong about something. Added bonus: He has a website and answers any questions you may have while reading. I don’t expect everyone to believe what I do nor do I expect everyone to believe this book. In fact, I would LOVE to hear others take on Steve’s Books! Bottom line is that you should definitely read it if The Black Dahlia is of interest to you!

  2. Well she did become famous by coming to LA didn’t she

    There is a fascinating novel about the murder it’s a great read

  3. Please do a show on Elisa Lam who was found in the Cecil Hotel water tank!! That video of her the day she goes missing is bonkers weird!

  5. i’d love it if you would examine two murderers: Clara Harris and Andrea Yates, both from suburban Houston, TX. the whole world knows what they did, but what about the ladies’ husbands? both David Harris and Rusty Yates were very controlling and manipulative heads-of-household. how much did their actions or inactions play a part in the murders subsequently committed by Clara and Andrea? were the women suffering from temporary insanity at the time of the murders? did they receive just sentences? were their husbands at least partly responsible for the acts of their wives, and did the men deserve any repercussions — of course, David Harris had an intimate encounter with Clara’s Mercedes and didn’t live to shoulder any responsibility for his behavior, but what did David and Rusty do or not do to “deserve” their fates? i confess that i’ve always held them responsible for what happened to their families; David died, but Rusty survived to father more children by another woman — should that man ever be allowed to have children again? if not, why not?

    these are both stories of vengeance. where does the blame lie, and were the punishments exacted the right ones, and the ONLY ones, to be meted out? i’d be interested to hear your discussion with friend on the justification of the outcome of Clara’s and Andrea’s trials, and opinions on their sentences. i’m not interested in WHO done it so much as WHY they done it.

  6. I’d never heard of this before and found it so disturbing, I actually feel a bit sick after seeing the photos, I don’t get how people could romanticise what happened to her….humanity is weird.
    Love seeing your own show Grace :) You are awesome!

  7. Great show! The one thing that will stick with me probably the most and something that I was rather dumbstruck by was the photograph of this poor woman’s upper body. Think about it: her face is mutilated and her insides are spilling out the gruesome cut in her torso and really the only thing not horrible to look at would have been her naked breasts but they are what is deemed too unsavory for us to view. We live in weird times.

    1. That is such an excellent point. A person is cut in half, a face sliced from mouth to ears. That is just fine, but a pair of naked breasts is too much.
      We are paying members and it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.
      If you’re gonna show the gore, don’t hide any bodypart. Whatever that happened to be.

  10. Grace, because you are fascinated with unsolved murder cases does not mean you are creepy. It just means you are…….., wow, I am the same way way, and now that I wrote it out. Am I creepy? Either way, a lot of people feel the same way

  11. Thanks for doing this story Grace and Sara! Though I knew of it before your treatment, thanks to you both I see the timeline of American attitudes towards women and by men and themselves more clearly.

    In 1945 an American Los Angeles born woman of Japanese descent was labeled by a white male reporter as the fictional Tokyo Rose. She had spent four years trapped in Tokyo doing radio work with an Australian POW, helping each other survive the torture. She never renounced her US citizenship. Her reward? Being forced to disrobe and shower before a barrage of American officers and businessmen. Walter Winchell as her judge and jury. Years in jail. Never a thought about what allied people she helped save or her determination to remain American.

    Twenty-five years after women won the vote this is part of what women could expect. Equating working women and women who traveled / tried to live alone with prostitutes was the rest of what women could expect well into the 1960s.

    Someone once told me the whole post war programming about what constituted a ‘good girl’ was designed to get all those returning GIs the jobs that women PROVED they could do as well as men all during the war. It was an effort at many levels to disempower women, so the law and justice was suspended at many levels regarding anything showing a woman who made efforts to take control of her own life coming to a bad end. The awful result of this suspension of justice was a growing market for turning assault / murder into titilating entertainment.

    Sound familiar in 2016? Well remember The Donald and a good number of others we’ve got trouble with today are from exactly that era.

  12. I’m really glad you chose this story. It’s always interested me and filled me with sadness. She was a young woman with hopes, dreams, and troubles. I think that’s true of a lot of young people to this day, and it’s so sad that she never got to the really good part of life.

    Weird side note: I fostered a young female kitty who was only 6 months old when we found her wandering the streets. Even at that young age, she was preggers with what turned out to be 6 kittens. When they were all old enough to be adopted, we kept a kitten and sent her and the one kitten we didn’t find a home for to the SPCA. We had named her Freya (because she was beautiful, and all her kittens looked, different, so she was popular with the male cats). I was horrified to see that the SPCA had renamed her “Dahlia” because all I could think of was this case. And it took her so long to get adopted, which was odd because she was stunning and very empathetic, and got along great with other cats AND dogs. I finally called them after she had been there for 3 months, and gently suggested they change her name back. As soon as they did, she was adopted THAT day.

    Anyway, I adore this show. Grace is such a great host, and I truly appreciate all the hard work that has gone into each episode(both what we see and what we don’t). It shows, and I will continue recommending it to my friends. Looking forward to the next one!

  13. Wow. I read a totally different version in a crime book. She was invited to a big Hollywood party by a some-what known director. She later left the party but no one knew who with. That was the last time she was seen.

    I love love love this show; however, when I go up to the member area and hit Murder With Friends, I get a notice that asks if I want to go to News. I click OK and it then sends me over to podcast. I am a paying member and would love to watch the other shows in this catagory.

  14. My grandmother knew her, she worked with my great aunts at the same diner as a waitress in MA. She was super nice, they only had good things to say about her. But then again who would say anything bad about a person brutally murdered? :O

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