Transcript
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Raj (0:53)
And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.
Noah (0:59)
Because we're still doing doing a lot of stuff wrong.
Raj (1:01)
But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming.
Noah (1:10)
We'Ll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right. So the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.
Raj (1:19)
Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you get your podcasts.
Noah (1:27)
And for the first time ever, we're going to have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you do them better.
Katy Charlwood (1:35)
Love y'.
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All.
Katy Charlwood (1:37)
Influencer marketing isn't what it used to be. We're shifting from reach to resonance, from impressions to impact. It's no longer about how many people see your content. It's how deeply you connect with them. And nothing creates that connection quite like podcasts. Acasts podcast pulse 2025 report reveals how podcast creators are redefining influence through resonance, multiplatform fandoms and their ability to shape culture. So if you're a marketer who's tired of vanity metrics and looking for meaningful results, podcasts are where you need to be. Download the full research free at podcast pulse2025.com. Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to who did what Now, The History podcast. That's not your history class with me, your host, Katy Charlwood, history harlot and reader of books. So it has been a month. It has been a month. And that month has felt like an entire fucking Year, like, so much has happened in one month. And it is filling me with fear, God, dread, and undiluted rage. Now, I don't know how else to explain it, because as a historian and sociologist who is watching events unfold on this planet, I have to say, things are not looking good, okay? And to top it all off, I was already stressed, okay? I was already stressed, and then Catherine o' Hara died. Now, I cannot explain how much this woman means to me. And you can be like, oh, parasocial, blah, blah, blah. I don't give a fuck, okay? Because I love Catherine. Oh, o'. Hara. She was amazing and creative and funny. She was so funny. And I loved her in, like, Home Alone in Beetlejuice and Best in Show in Schitt's Creek. Got me through some tough damn times, let me tell you. So when I am not recording this, I am just gonna go and watch everything. Everything Catherine o' Hara has ever been in. I don't care if it's a bit part. I just need some joy right now. Anyway, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, katie, quit your jibber jabber and fact me. And I'd love to fact you, but all of her sources are actually in part one. So if you haven't listened to part one, you're gonna want to go do that. So let's get a bit more information on the timeline leading up to Elizabeth Short's death. So we have Elizabeth Shorts, life, really, in the last episode. And this episode is Elizabeth Short's death. I wasn't intentionally splitting them thusly, but the chips just fell where they may. And so, without further ado. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then let's begin. And yes, welcome to the second half of the Black Dahlia. Okay, that was not actually an intentional pun, but we're just gonna leave it in there because life, guys, life. If you haven't listened to part one, I'm gonna suggest that you get all caught up and then come back after. And I'm going to say it now, but the last episode was much gentler because I'm going to be discussing the crime scene, Elizabeth Short's injuries, and what information has been deduced about her torture and murder. Now, I say, what information has been deduced because of. Although I have. We have information, some limited information from the actual reports. We also have modern forensic and criminal analysis, but we do not have certain pieces of information. These have still been withheld from the public. Whether they have been lost forever or whether they're in somebody's trunk. Whoms to say, but that's where we are. As always, I will be as clinical as possible when describing the information regarding injuries sustained pre and postmortem. But if that is too much for you, I'm going to suggest that you exit stage left and we'll see you next time, okay? Same bat time, same bat channel. So on the morning of February 15th of January, 1947, Mrs. Bertie Berzinger was walking south down the west side of Norton Avenue with her three year old daughter Anne. And as she's walking, something pale catches her eye. It sort of through the tall grass on an empty lot in the 3, 800 block. Now, it wasn't just, you know, stuff was there? Like there was things kicking about, they were sort of rubbish or strewn like trash. There was trash all about for my American friends. So there was like rusted old bed frames and just litter and just stuff, you know, debris. And so it wasn't unusual for her to walk down this street and see things just in that general area. And vacant lots like this weren't unusual throughout the city either, because Los Angeles was a booming city and it had been growing, but the infrastructure was yet to catch up. Housing had been put on hold during the Second World War. And all over la there were residential areas with both homes and empty lots. In Norton alone, some houses were built like in Norton alone, some houses were built as early as 1942, while others weren't constructed until the mid-50s. In fact, on that vacant lot, the very one that was catching Mrs. Berzinger's eye, a home would not be built that until 1956. 3825 South Norton Avenue. Like now, I believe this to be that specific lot just with the information, you know, provided between the newspapers and the case notes themselves and from the coroner's inquest, like that seems to be the spot. Oh, and as far as I can see, it's currently priced at under a million dollars. Just there's just a fact for you. At first Mrs. Berzinger thought that someone had dumped a mannequin or a tailor's dummy. But as she grew closer and it came into view, it was very clear that this was not a mannequin. It is never ever a mannequin. It was in fact the body of a woman cut in half just feet off of the sidewalk. Feet as in inches and feet, not feet as in the bodily appendage. I feel the need to confirm that because it was clear that this was a corpse on the side of the street. The mother scoops up her daughter and bolted to the nearest home and use their telephone to call the police. She calls the university division at the lapd, and they send one squad car down. The two officers see quite squarely that this is a dead body inches from the sidewalk, and call it in. This is the most widely accepted timeline of events, but for the sake of a fully rounded understanding of the scene, we have to consider all the information. If you've seen the crime scene photographs, you'll see that the body is as inches from the sidewalk. Right? You can go look them up. And the thing is, there were so many reporters at the scene, so many photographers along with, like, the crime scene photographers. You have like, every angle. Like, you can see this from across the street. You can see it from the sidewalk. You can see it from the grass of the vacant lot. Like, you have probably one of the best documented crime scenes. I mean, it's tarnished completely because, you know, people are walking all over it. But anyway, so there was an interview with Betty Louise Berzinger at the ripe old age of 101. And in this interview, she claims that when she approached the vacant lot, she saw something pale in the long grass and weeds. And it was about 12ft from the sidewalk, not inches feet, that it was just, like, further in the garden or say garden in the sort of grassy lot. And she actually had to go into the grass. Like, she had to step off the sidewalk to look at it. Like, she was like, what is that? And took a few steps, and she saw the top half of a torso, but the back of it, not the front. And she still thought it was a mannequin and pushing a stroller, walked calmly to the nearest home and called the LAPD from there. And she did it to warn them as she was worried that it might scare the children. You know, because it's a street, you know, it's quite a busy residential area, and as a throughpass, it's quite busy. And so kids would cycle their bike and they'd go past, and, like, she would see this, and she was like, oh, I don't want to scare these kids. And that's about that. And she goes along with her day. And according to this version of events, the body was face down, half hidden by weeds, and was then moved closer to the sidewalk by the next people on the scene, Frank S. Perkins and William E. Fitzgerald. I also want to confirm that you'll see sometimes it, you know, put down as Wayne Fitzgerald. It's William. His name is William Fitzgerald. If you look at any of the LAPD Information. It's William. So on the one hand, this situation, if it's like this, this would explain a few things, like why the dispatcher thought, you know, to send one squad car, not homicide, to the 390. A stuporous drunk. Right? That's the code. Code 390 is the code for a stuporous drunk. Somebody who's all boozed up and they're just kind of Jack Sparrowing their way through the streets. Right. It would explain also why the body wasn't noticed nearly 11am on a busy Los Angeles street. Sun Opera at this time was about 6am People would have driven past, children cycled to school, etc. Etc. On the other hand, this was a discussion with a centennial woman. The human memory is unreliable. In fact, this is actually a fun fact. Or maybe not so fun. I don't know if this is fun for you. It was fun for me. We don't remember the memory. We remember the last time we remembered that memory. Like a photocopy of a photocopy. And eventually for most people, it gets fuzzy. You know, a drawing of a drawing is never quite the same. And, you know, it had been over 70 years. And there's always the possibility that this was a way of her dealing with it and being okay with it, that she never actually thought she saw a dead body. It was actually further away, it was hidden in the weeds. You know, that's a consideration, like making the memory more palatable over the years, you know. And if it is true, then what this does is it throws, you know, some of the criminology up in the air. Because a lot of what we base the criminology on is the very specific posing of Elizabeth Short's body. Now, I am both dubious and curious, but I do think perspective is necessary also. In addition, furthermore, we don't have tapes of the recordings, only the alleged transcript by a reality TV producer turned writer. Consider it. But Pinchas Salt, you know, Pinchas salt. So with this theory, the two officers who arrived on the scene would have moved the body from the depths of the vacant lot, moved it closer to the sidewalk, and then flipped it round the right way, thus posing the body in this position, which again, changes a lot of her criminology. Curious and dubious. Sorry, one more thing, actually, because he. I read. I read the damn book, right? He says in this interview, like, he's like, why didn't you tell people before? And she's like, nobody asked. And I'm like, I feel like they did. I feel like they would have If. If, you know, oh, you're the person who discovered the Black Dahlia, people would question. People would ask you, right? Whether or not you wanted to answer would be a different thing. But I feel like people would ask that question because we are nosy, okay? We're a nosy bunch, okay? That's what we're like. And I just. I just don't think it's right. I just feel like it's another little twist and a little push to try and sell books, but that's because I am a skeptic. And another thing, okay? A lot of the crime scene photos, they are taken very close to the victim in black and white cameras. So, like, it's not always going to be the best quality, obviously, degradation over time as well. So you've got these photos, and a lot of them are very, very close. Now, there are other photos of this scene that are further back. And, like, from the road, you might not necessarily see the body. You might see some things there, but it might not catch your eye. You know, I would notice more things as a passenger of a car than the drivers would a lot of the time because I noticed that a lot of drivers don't notice things on the side of the road because, you know, they're actually looking at it, you know, to drive. So it's just one of those things. I don't drive, so I could be wrong. Feel free to correct me. But you look at the road, right? You're not looking at the houses and the. You know, a place that's known to have trash at the. Trash at the side of the road. Like, that's not a thing. Is that a thing? I feel like that's not a thing. But if people are sort of minding their own business and they're going along the road, then I can understand them not seeing the body. But if someone's on the sidewalk, on that sidewalk, especially on the other side of the road, you wouldn't necessarily spot it, I don't believe. But on this side, that's when you'd come across it. And I feel like that's something to take into consideration in this area. So either way, with this phone call, like. Yeah, because the other version with the phone call is she sees the body, she goes up and she gets into the house, and she's sort of panicked and distressed. I covered this in the last week's episode, and she's sort of stressed and whatnot. And because of this, there's, you know, a miscommunication, and that's where the Squad car gets sent instead of homicide. But either way, Betty makes the call. And the communication officer sends a patrol car. Unit 34, Frank S. Perkins, number 4057, and William E. Fitzgerald, 3940, show up at the crime scene. Again, his name is William, not Wayne. Because I checked the LAPD officer's memorandum, okay? I looked it up. Fun fact. Also, did you know there are less archival files available on the FBI archives for the Black Dahlia than the Texarkana moonlight murders? So the Texarkana Moonlight Murders has 11, 18 sort of documents in the archive. The Black Dahlia has 204. Like much, much less. Now, I don't know if just less things were sent to the FBI or this is just. It's just. It's just interesting. And I know this because I read them. So Perkins and Fitzgerald, they arrive at 11:09. So Betty, timeline. Betty leaves her house at 10:30. It's about. Almost 11 by the time she sees the body, gets to the next house, makes the phone call 1109, right? They see it, and pretty sharpish, they request backup five minutes later. Now, I saw someone query, like, why did it take a whole five minutes to radio for backup? First of all, these are not homicide detectives, let alone seasoned ones, right? They're expecting to find a drunkard swanning about. Instead, it is a mutilated, bisected corpse of what looks like to be a teenage girl. That's gonna be hard on anybody. So they call it in and reporters are on the scene before homicide hour. Both Aggie Underwood and Will Fowler claim to be the first on the scene. Right? Will Fowler, actually, in his book, he says that he was, you know, the first one on the scene. And he tells his photographer, Pedro, he says, oh, no, no, the girl's cut in half. And so he ends up being, you know, showing some respect and closes her eyes. Now, I understand forensics are not where. Where you know, we are now, however, don't touch the corpse. I feel like don't touch the body is a very basic thing when that body is definitely of a dead person, okay? Especially one who appears to have been murdered. Now, the whole thing is like life saving techniques are always necessary. But again, mutilated, bisected corpse, okay? You're not saving anybody. And it's like, oh, I closed her eyes. You know how they close the eyes of a corpse, right? They put pins in there. That's how they do it, okay? And the thing is, like, to close a person's eyes, you they. You really should be doing it, like if it's close to death and you sort of gently close the eyes and you hold them there for a while, then they might, they might stay there. Most of the time they will open, like, at least a little bit, right? At least slightly. Most of the time they're gonna just like a little bit of a boing up. I feel like you're not. You're not closing those eyes, but also don't touch the fucking body. So back to the press contaminating the crime scene. See, press would show up to crime scenes all the time trying to get the scoop right. You can see the crime scene photos and again, it's really useful because we can see the layout, but also, no, because, again, crime scene contamination. And like in those crime scene photos, you can see all of the reporters that have shown up. So you basically just have this massive, massive, just group of just watchers at this point, just watching this situation. Now, again, people are nosy. So the coroner arrived and noted that the body was 54ft from the fire hydrant. So again, that's where it makes that 3825 house. That's why I think it's that location. The body was posed, the arms akimbo, bent at the elbow and raised above the shoulders. Kind of like a dancer's pose. Or if you lie back on a bed and you put your arms like above your head, sort of like kind of sexy. It actually lifts the bosom up if you put your hands above your head, which I think is why it's such a prominent, sort of schmuckshy, sultry pose. So she's posed in this very open, very submissive way. Her hair was matted with blood. The face was covered in bruises and lacerations. She had cuts from the corner of her mouth into her cheeks and nearly at her ears. So they say there are cuts from the corner of her mouth into her cheeks. Now, they actually refer to this at the time as they call it a Glasgow smile, Right, which is supposed to be a technique for splitting, splitting the. The mouth. Now, I would actually know that as a Chelsea grin. So the Chelsea grin is a very sharp, high grin and it can be done by. No, I'm not going to tell you how to do it, actually. I'm not going to tell you how to cut someone's mouth open. On top of this, her front teeth were missing. There were ligature marks on her wrists, ankles and neck. The liver was hanging out of the torso. The top half was more than 12 inches, like a foot apart from the Bottom half, but not directly. It was asymmetrical, so the bottom was a little to the right of the top. Like if you're facing the body so effectively. Her left side was further out. The lower half was mutilated. Cut to the pubic region. Lacerations on her thigh and her intestines had been tucked neatly under her buttocks. Rigor mortis had not set in. Lividity was observable on the top half of the body. For the sake of modesty, the victim was covered with a blanket, although I suspect that it was more to make the murder more printable. You can't exactly put a naked body on the front page of a 1940s newspaper. By covering her with a blanket, it made it more newspaper friendly. Aggie Underwood noted a male heel print bloody near the scene. Like they mention. They mentioned tire tracks too, but no one takes a photo of them. So like there's tire tracks near the scene and like a muddy heel print with blood in it. Like it's there. It's there. The evidence at the crime scene is minimal. There's. And there's something like very important missing blood. There are a few drops on the sidewalk, but if the murder occurred at the location, there would be blood all over. All over the crime scene. Because that's a bisected body. The body was drained of blood before being deposited at the crime scene. So that meant the murder must have happened elsewhere and then the body brought here. Like they do find as they're searching the area, a bag, an empty bag of Ajax brand cement with a few drops of blood on it. Detectives Harry Hansen and Finnis Brown, they get assigned to the case and like detectives, they actually end up making a human perimeter around the crime scene just because so many people are showing up and they need to protect it. So they're like, we need to actually block off this area. Like so human wall. Uniformed officers were sent out to canvas the area, searching for information and clues. Reporters got a sketch of the victim and chased their own leads about Jane Doe number one. While canvassing, several residents reported seeing a dark or black 1930s Ford sedan. So I think most of them say it was like a 36 or 37, that it was near the crime scene early in the morning between like 6:30 and 7:00am Everyone was also searching for the woman who called in, but. But it would take them 10 days to find Mrs. Betty Louise Ber. Like, okay, sidebar. One of the things they used to do in the old papers was recreate scenarios. So there are photos of her on the telephone. She's got her hair done, she's in a fur coat, right? And also, like, so she's holding the phone and also she's kind of hot. Like, I'm like looking at this woman going, wow, Betty Petty's got it going on. God, she's, she's gorgeous. Uh, listen, don't mind me. Just thirsting over centennial women here. So they would, like, post. You can see these photos. Like, they're great. They're like, they're my favorite type of, like, recreation photos. But everyone's like, super dolled up and, oh, it's fabulous. So back to the case. That evening, the victim's fingerprints were sent to the FBI via sound photo. Like, this was covered in our last episode. So if you want more details on that sound photo is basically an old type of fax mail. So fax machine, which is like an old timey scanner. And while that's going on, Los Angeles County Coroner Frederick Newbar performed the autopsy on the 16th of January, 1947. Frederick Newbar, the county coroner, noted that the victim was 5 foot 5 inches tall and weighed around 115 pounds, had brown hair dyed with henna, and her teeth were badly decayed, front teeth missing. So the victim had a description, a sketch. But thanks to the LA examiner, she also had a name. Elizabeth Short. Out of over 104 million files, Beth Short's prints are found twice. The first being her job application at Camp Cook, and the other for when she was arrested for underage drinking in 1943. So Elizabeth Short, who they initially thought was 15 or 16, was 22. The LAPD have a deal with the examiner thanks to the whole use of the sound photo machine situation. Basically, the LAPD kind of got extorted and the paper got first dibs on inflammation. So one of the reporters calls Beth Short's mum, Phoebe Short, and gets all this info from her, right? Because he rings her up and he tells her that Elizabeth has won a beauty contest. And like, once he's got this information, like one of the other reporters is like, what the actual fck are you doing? Like, you need to tell her. And after that he just basically goes, yeah, your daughter was murdered. Actually, like, he doesn't tell her. Like, he gets all this information and then he goes, oh, yeah, and she's dead, the prick. And it wasn't until later on either that this was confirmed by the lapd. So they told her first, okay. And so she ends up maintaining, like really good composure during this because this is shocking information. And then the lapd, they inform her, and the examiner just ends up offering to fly her out, like, to Los Angeles. And they do this, obviously, because they want to get to her first, but they make it seem like, oh, look, we're sorry. We're helping you. Prick.
