Welcome to the 3rd podcast of the Black Dahlia and the Blue Dahlia, this is your host, Scott Tracy.

The Los Angeles Police expect to send Jane Doe’s fingerprints to the FBI by air, however, blizzards grounded flights on the east coast. Los Angeles Examiner City Editor James Richardson offered the LAPD an opportunity to use the Hearst newspaper exclusive Soundphoto, an early incarnation of the fax machine. A wire photo transmission of each fingerprint was enlarged and send to the Washington Herald where FBI agents wait for the large copies of each single fingerprint. Within hours the FBI identifies Elizabeth Short as the victim based on her employment at the Camp Cooke military base and her arrest for underaged drinking by the Santa Barbara Police at the age of 19 at the bar of the El Paseo Restaurant. This arrest photo is the one commonly used on book covers and in magazines. One can easily understand why it would be chosen, as it is a striking image; Elizabeth Short is handsome, defiant and vulnerable. I am very drawn to the range of emotions visible in this photograph as there is chaos at the edge, Beth’s the wild dense hair and untidy bow tie frame her face. The use of make-up is restrained, atypical for Beth. The earrings are elegant. There is a compelling architecture to this face, her cheekbones are a force, her neck is noble, her jaw juts powerfully forward, challenging the camera. Her lips are slightly parted, tender and full, there is no expectation of words. This is a mouth that is as likely to spit in your face as blow a kiss. At the center of this the enigmatic photo, her imbalanced eyes; cautious and curious. These are the eyes of an animal captured at the moment of decision; to fight or flee; revealing an unexpected level of tension between Elizabeth and the camera. The beam of light that travels from her face to the lens is taunt as a rope. It is a photograph that captures the elusive essence of this beckoning and rebellious young woman, a visual that calls out equally to Bonnie Parker and Jane Russell.

It is in every way an arresting picture; many of us struggle with our embarrassing driver’s license ID photos and here is Beth Short with what may be the most attractive mug shot in history. It’s a haunting familiar image as we know the horrific fate that awaits the Black Dahlia.

This mug shot was taken by Santa Barbara arresting police officer, Mary Unkefer, Short stays with Unkefer in the days after the arrest until the juvenile court released Miss Short on probation. Beth is send home on a bus on October 2nd 1943, heading east to Boston Massachusetts. Officer Unkefer noticed Elizabeth “had a rose tattooed on her left leg. Beth loved to sit so that it would show.”

The Hearst newspapers are quick to act on their scoop. Reporters are sent to Santa Barbara to learn more about her time at the military base. James Richardson instructs reporter Wain Sutton call Beth’s mother, Phoebe Short in Medford Massachusetts. On instructions from his boss, Sutton informs Phoebe that Elizabeth has won a beauty contest to get more information before revealing the true reason for the contact. The newspaper learns that Elizabeth was in San Diego recently where she worked at Naval hospital, previously she had been in Hollywood working as a film extra

It’s horrible for the newspaper reporters to lie to Phoebe Short about her daughter, ironically much of what the mother tells the reporter are lies Elizabeth Short told her mother, Beth never worked at the San Diego Naval hospital at Balboa Park, she never worked at all in California, she was never had acting parts in any Hollywood studio movie. The Hollywood myth begins with a lie in a daughter’s letter to her mother repeated to a newspaperman.

It is compelling to compare how news framed the murder and the victim in the first days of investigation. Beginning

Murder Of The Black Dahlia Laid To A Sex-Perverted Madman, Baltimore Sun

The mutilation slayer of attractive 22 year old Elizabeth Short whose butchery was described by a police psychiatric as the work of a sex perverted madman, was being sought on a nation-wide scale today with authorities trying to locate her several “boy-friends” Her suiters were many, said Police Captain Loren Q. Martin of Long Beach where she lived until recently. He added that ... hangers-on at a neighborhood drug store near where she lived, (they called her) “The Black Dahlia” because of her raven hair and the jet-black clothing she usually wore.

As the newspapers grapple with the shock of the mutilation the story is framed by psychology. Who would do this? A sex pervert. Then one wonders which one of her many boyfriends is a perverted violent sex killer. Note the police statement that it’s Hangers-on at a drug counter, not friends.

Boy Friends in Three Services… Police would particularly like to question an unidentified army lieutenant, described as “tall and handsome” Miss Short allegedly told friends she intended to marry him. She also was frequently visited at her Long Beach hotel by a navy man. Policewoman Myrl McBride asserted Miss Short once asked her for protection from a discharged Marine whom the girl described as “insanely jealous.”

Note that McBride says Miss Short asked her for protection from an insane serviceman. This will come back to haunt McBride as she did everything correctly given the circumstances but its unfortunate for the image of the LAPD that Elizabeth Short is brutally tortured and murdered just after she asks for police protection earlier that same day.

Continuing with the Baltimore Sun. “Shortly after she took a clerk’s job in the Post Exchange at Camp Cooke, near Santa Barbara where, said her former boss, Mrs Inez Keeling, she at first was shy and bashful and never dated soldiers. At that time she was a model employee in all respects, not smoking and seldom drinking. A few months later, said Mrs. Keeling she began to go out with the soldiers several times a week.

The Baltimore Sun supposes the crime was committed by a crazy ex-serviceman. Let’s compare two other versions of the same news day story.

24 Former Suitors of Slain L.A.Girl Sought SF CHRONICLE

…Officers concentrated on locating … a supposed airline employee known as "Red" with whom Beth left San Diego a week before the killing. Also still unidentified is the "short, dark man" who paid Miss Short's rent when she lived previously at a Hollywood hotel. He drove an old black Ford sedan, similar to one observed by the vacant lot a few hours before the body was discovered. Still another suspect police want to question is a jealous marine suiter. A search for him was started after an incident related by Policewoman Myrl O. McBride. She related that the girl, so filled with terror that she was crying, run up to her at a downtown bus station and asked for protection against an "ex-marine boy friend who once, threatened to kill me if he found me with another man," Beth explained that she had just encountered the marine In a bar and had been so frightened that she had run out without her purse and wraps. Officer McBride went to the bar with the girl while she retrieved those articles. The policewoman advised Miss Short to go home, but the girl returned to the bus station, explaining: "My daddy's coming: in two hours from now." "Two hours from now" was the time a bus was due ...