Chapter 21
WHAT HAPPENED?
Elizabeth Short photo from LAPD information poster. (FBI.gov)
On January 15, 1947, a body was discovered in a vacant lot in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles (the area now known as Crenshaw). The body had been cut in two between the L1 and L2 vertebrae, eviscerated, and drained of blood. The woman’s face had been mutilated, and her neck and wrists were marred by ligature marks. She died from a blow to the head and blood loss associated with multiple cuts on her face. Her body had been cut in two after she died.
After the FBI used fingerprints to identify the victim as Elizabeth Short, the LAPD launched one of the most extensive homicide investigations in the history of the department. In spite of thousands of leads and multiple confessions, the murder of Elizabeth Short has never been solved. Or has it?
BACKGROUND
There are many tales about Elizabeth’s family, several of which would have had Jerry Springer’s producers racing to the phones to book them. Her parents were Cleo and Phoebe Short. In some renditions, Cleo Short was a designer of miniature golf courses who lost everything in the stock market crash of 1929. Stories that he faked his own death sometime around 1930 and then reappeared a couple of years later are also widespread.
The Traveling Wilburys
The real story begins when Cleo Alvin Short married Phoebe Mae Sawyer on April 11, 1918, in Portland, Maine. Between 1920 and 1929, the couple bounced between Maine and Massachusetts and had five daughters along the way: Virginia Mae (later the wife of Adrian C. West), Dorothea (later the wife of Norman F. Schloesser), Elizabeth (never married, later the Black Dahlia), Elnora (later the wife of Duncan Chalmers), and Muriel Arlene (later the wife of Earle Ira McNair).
Elizabeth Short was born July 29, 1924, in Medford, Massachusetts. She was the third child born to the couple.
As a forensic genealogist, I can’t resist digging into the old records about the characters in true crime stories, and this case is no exception. In the interval between 1920 and 1930, I found Cleo and Phoebe in various census records and city directories. Cleo’s occupation was always listed as some variety of salesman or mechanical engineer. Zippo on miniature golf.
Don’t Fear the Reaper
Whatever shenanigans went on between 1930 and 1940, by the enumeration of the 1940 census, Phoebe was calling herself a widow, and Cleo was off the radar, having managed to successfully dodge the census taker altogether. Yet, in 1942, Cleo Short was alive and well, registering for the draft in Robstown, Texas, and saying that his daughter Virginia (who was living with Phoebe on Salem Street in Medford, Massachusetts) would always know where he was. Phoebe’s marital status had changed from widowed to separated by 1950.
I believe this evidence in the public record supports the assertion that Cleo Short faked his own death sometime after the 1930 census was taken. Either that, or he did a damn good impression of Lazarus rising from the dead. In any case, Cleo Short deserted his family, leaving Phoebe alone with five children at the height of the Great Depression.
Suffice it to say, the Shorts were hardly rivaling the Cleavers for middle-class stability and apple pie perfection.
The Black Dahlia in Hollywood website contains an amazingly detailed chronology of Elizabeth’s life and times. It’s a great site and definitely worth reviewing. Working from that and other resources along with some genealogical research thrown in, I have discerned the following summary of Elizabeth’s life after she left home.
Breathing Easy in the Land of Oranges and Alligators
Elizabeth Short left Medford in 1939 at the age of fifteen and went to Florida, ostensibly to escape the brutal winter months in Massachusetts and the effect of the cold on her severe asthma. Asthma or not, it’s easy to envision a teenage girl wanting to get the hell out of Dodge when the house on Salem Street was such a dysfunction junction. The stories vary between sources as to whether she went to live with “family friends” during these winters or if she simply left home at fifteen and went to Florida to shift for herself. My impression from the whole of the research materials I’ve read is that Elizabeth dropped out of school and amscrayed on her own, bouncing between Florida and Massachusetts from 1939 to the end of 1942.
Daddy Dearest Meets Californication
While the reports of his death were greatly exaggerated, Cleo Short left the East Coast in his rearview mirror and, by way of Texas, eventually landed in California, where the tourist brochures promised endless sunshine and infinite possibilities. Unfortunately, those promises often amounted to nothing more than tawdry living conditions and tarnished dreams. In poor Elizabeth Short’s case, they ultimately amounted to murder.
In December of 1942, Elizabeth’s father, Cleo, sent her a letter and offered for her to come live with him and a woman named Mrs. Yankee in Vallejo, California. The letter contained $200 to cover Elizabeth’s travel costs. She accepted the invitation and headed west.
But, like so many other situations in her life, the living arrangement didn’t last long. After a few weeks, Daddy Dearest, disapproving of her lifestyle, threw her out of his apartment and severed his newly rekindled relationship with her for good.
Camp Cutie to AWOL Patootie
In need of money and a place to live, on January 28, 1943, Elizabeth started work at the post exchange at Camp Cooke (now known as Vandenburg Air Force Base) near Lompoc, California. While at Camp Cooke, she was named “Camp Cutie” in a base beauty contest. But she quit the post exchange job after only a couple of weeks, leaving Lompoc on February 15, 1943.
On the Road Again
After spending the summer of 1943 in a cabin in luxurious Casmalia, California, Elizabeth returned to her mother’s house in Medford for a brief stay before moving on to Miami Beach where she worked at Big Dave’s Rosedale Delicatessen & Restaurant on Washington Avenue.
With the exception of the month of March in 1944, which she spent in Atlanta, Elizabeth stayed in Miami Beach.
Fickle on Fickling
In September of 1944, Elizabeth met and had a brief affair with a soldier named Gordon Fickling. But, by December of 1944, Fickling was out of the picture, and Elizabeth started seeing Matt Gordon, a pilot in the Army Air Corps. They fell deeply in love, but shortly after their relationship began, Matt Gordon shipped out.
By March of 1945, Elizabeth was back in Massachusetts, working at St. Clair’s restaurant in Boston. Elizabeth and Matt Gordon wrote to each other frequently, and the couple had agreed to marry when Matt returned from the war. But, on August 10, 1945, Matt Gordon was killed in a plane crash in India. His mother sent Elizabeth a telegram dated August 22, 1945, telling her of Matt’s death.
Between December 1945 and January 1946, we know that Elizabeth was living at the Colonial Inn on Riverside Avenue in Jacksonville, Florida, because her mother sent money to her at that address. By February 1946, Elizabeth was back in Medford, living with Phoebe again.
California, Here I Come!
In June of 1946, Elizabeth shipped trunks via Railway Express and bought herself a bus ticket to Indianapolis. But, for some reason that is not clear, she ended up in Chicago instead. Between June 24 and July 12, 1946, Elizabeth was registered as a guest at the Park Row Hotel in Chicago.
Selling Fake Mortgages on Swampland in Florida
According to the good folks at The Black Dahlia in Hollywood, Elizabeth then spent the next ten days in the Blackstone Hotel (also in Chicago) registered as the guest of a man named Jack Chernau.
While I can’t find mention of the Park Row Hotel in current records, the Blackstone is one of America’s iconic hotels. Interested in what penniless Elizabeth Short would be doing in a landmark of luxury like the Blackstone, I did some digging of my own. In public records of that era, I found only one Jack Chernau—Hyman Jack Chernau, to be exact. While there is no way to prove for certain that this man is the same Jack Chernau who Elizabeth was shacked up with at the Blackstone, the facts seem to fit.
Jack Chernau was born on December 13, 1912, as Hyman Rosenblum, but the name on his Social Security number was subsequently changed to Hyman J. Chernau. All of the historical addresses I found for him were in and around Miami, Florida (where Elizabeth had been living during the last part of 1945 and the first half of 1946).
The December 24, 1966 edition of the Miami Herald described Chernau’s conviction on twelve counts of securities fraud. Chernau helped run a Ponzi scheme selling interests in fake mortgages that bilked the public out of 9.5 million dollars, leaving almost 2,000 investors without a chair in 1962 when the music stopped and the company folded like a cheap suit. In March of ’67, Chernau was sentenced to six months in federal prison and three years’ probation for his role in the scheme.
Elizabeth Short didn’t have great taste in men.
After her sojourn in Chicago with conman Jack Chernau, Elizabeth finally made it back to California. Gordon Fickling picked her up at the Long Beach bus station on July 22, 1946, thus beginning the death spiral that ended with her gruesome murder 176 days later.
It Wasn’t Schwab’s
Upon her arrival in Long Beach, Elizabeth was registered as a guest at the Washington Hotel from July 22 until August 3. During this time, she frequently hung out at Lander’s Drug Store. It was reportedly at Lander’s where other customers nicknamed her the “Black Dahlia” (a take on the popular 1946 film noir The Blue Dahlia) either because of her propensity to dress in black or, some say, because of her jet-black hair.
Still Fickle on Fickling
On August 4, Elizabeth took the Pacific Electric trolley to Hollywood and most likely lived at the Sunset Motel there until August 20, when she and good old Gordon Fickling registered as husband and wife at the Brevoort Apartments on Lexington Avenue. The couple stayed at the Brevoort until August 27, when the arrangement ended under unknown circumstances.
Funny Meeting You Here
After her cohabitation with Fickling fizzled out, while shopping at a dime store in Hollywood, Elizabeth ran into a woman she knew from back home in Massachusetts, and they struck up a conversation. When Elizabeth mentioned not having a place to live, the woman, Marjorie Graham, invited Elizabeth to stay at her apartment at the Hawthorne Hotel at 1611 North Orange Drive in Hollywood. Elizabeth stayed two nights with Marjorie and her roommate, Lynn Martin, before getting her own apartment at the Hawthorne.
Strike Three, You’re Outta Here!
The women stayed at the hotel until the manager asked all three of them to leave on September 20, 1946. Elizabeth and Marjorie moved to the Hotel Figueroa at 939 South Figueroa Street in Los Angeles and stayed there for the next week. Lynn Martin did not join them.
Tot in Tinseltown
Only after the murder when the former roommates were being questioned did police discover that “Lynn Martin” was actually a fifteen-year-old girl named Norma Lee Myer who had run away from her adoptive home in Long Beach. After police learned her true identity, she was turned over to the proper juvenile authorities.
Are we to believe that Elizabeth and Marjorie couldn’t tell that their roomie was a child? Norma Lee Myer should have been in ninth grade reading Great Expectations, not roughing it in Hollywood on her own. While this kind of atrocity is shamefully commonplace in the twenty-first century, it certainly was not in 1946. The tale of poor Norma Lee Myer lets us know what a social cesspool Elizabeth Short was living in during the last days of her life.
And the Band Played On…but Not for Long
On September 28, Elizabeth and Marjorie moved into the home of band leader Sid Zaid on Windsor Road in Los Angeles. After two nights in the cramped quarters of Zaid’s small home, the band leader was ready to make his needy guests someone else’s problem. He took the women to meet his friend and associate, Mark Hansen, at Hansen’s home at 6024 Carlos Avenue in Los Angeles.
Hansen’s Harem
Hansen owned a chain of movie theaters and managed a nightclub called the Florentine Gardens on Hollywood Boulevard. Hansen was married but separated from his wife, who lived in the Hollywood Hills. Hansen frequently had young single women staying at the house on Carlos Avenue. Elizabeth and Marjorie stayed with Hansen until October 10, when he threw them out, reportedly over Marjorie’s drinking.
Cruisin’ the Boulevard
After their eviction from Hansen’s home, Elizabeth and Marjorie met Bill Robinson and Marvin Margolis on Hollywood Boulevard. Elizabeth and Marjorie apparently knew the men from their visits to Mark Hansen’s house. Learning that the women were fresh out of a place to live, Robinson invited them to come stay with him and Marvin Margolis at the Guardian Arms complex on Hollywood Boulevard. The women accepted the offer and stayed at the apartment for about two weeks, during which time Marjorie reportedly slept with the two men in one bed (how cozy), and Elizabeth slept on the couch, or so the story goes.
Hansen’s Harem, V. 2.0
Around October 22, Elizabeth left the Guardian Arms with a man named Glen Sterns (or Stearns), leaving her suitcases behind. Sterns described to investigators how he met Elizabeth on Hollywood Boulevard and convinced her to allow him to photograph her. The pair went to Marshall High School to take the pictures. Afterward, Sterns drove Elizabeth around the San Fernando Valley overnight looking for a place for her to stay. When she couldn’t find one, he finally took her back to the Guardian Arms, where she retrieved her suitcases. Sterns then drove her back to Mark Hansen’s house on Carlos Avenue. Elizabeth stayed with Hansen until he threw her out for a second time on November 13.
Relying on the Kindness of Semi-Strangers
When she was evicted from Hansen’s house, once again Elizabeth had nowhere to go. Anne Toth was another single woman who lived at 6024 Carlos Avenue and was the closest thing Elizabeth had to a friend. In an effort to help Elizabeth get on her feet, on November 13, Toth helped Elizabeth move her things to the Chancellor Apartments at 1842 North Cherokee Avenue, where Toth paid Elizabeth’s first week’s rent.
There’s No Place like San Diego for the Holidays
By December 7, Elizabeth was already behind on her rent at the Chancellor. After crying to Juanita Ring, the Chancellor’s manager, about her financial woes, she finally paid her arrearage and left, saying she was going to visit her sister in the Bay Area for the holidays. Like the countless other lies Elizabeth told, she never went to her sister’s house. When she was interviewed after the murder, Elizabeth’s sister Virginia West said she had not heard from Elizabeth in some time and certainly didn’t expect her for Christmas.
Elizabeth was picked up at the Chancellor by a man named Carl Balsiger. I found only one Carl Balsiger in Los Angeles at that time. H. Carl Balsiger, originally of Kansas City, Missouri, had been a captain in the US Army Quartermaster Corps during the war. In 1942, an article in the Pasadena Star-News described his work leading a field bakery in the Los Angeles area, overseeing the production of 4,000 loaves of bread per day. Assuming this is the same man who picked Elizabeth up at the Chancellor (which I can’t prove but seems likely), by 1952 he was back in Kansas City working as a supervisor for Trans World Airlines.
Balsiger told investigators that he took Elizabeth with him on a business trip, driving them to Camarillo in a 1940 Oldsmobile. He claimed to have rented her a room at an unnamed motel on Yucca Street at some point on December 7. Where he spent the night is not clear, nor was his explanation of what happened between them on the trip. According to Balsiger, on December 8, he drove Elizabeth back to Hollywood, where he dropped her off at the bus station so that she could go to Berkley to see her sister.
But, instead of heading north to the Bay Area, Elizabeth bought a bus ticket south to San Diego. She arrived at the San Diego bus station on December 9. With no money for a room, she purchased a ticket at the Aztec Picture Theater, where she fell asleep in her seat. Dorothy French, a twenty-one-year-old cashier, invited Elizabeth to come home with her to the house Dorothy shared with her mother, Elvira French, in the Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego. Elizabeth stayed with the Frenchs until January 8, 1947.
Houseguest from Hell
While Dorothy French had intended, out of the goodness of her heart, to give a poor traveler a place to sleep for the night, she and her mother ended up with a stranger living in their house for a month. Elizabeth lounged around during the day then disappeared at night with a litany of different men who came to call on her. Elizabeth hadn’t been gone from the French home for a week when the women, finally relieved of their hostlessly burden, were thrust into one of the largest homicide investigations in American history.
After the murder, the French women were questioned at great length by investigators regarding Elizabeth’s activities and contacts while she was living in their house in Pacific Beach.
Elizabeth’s Revolving Door of Love
The French women gave a detailed account of Elizabeth’s activities with different men during her time with them. They reported that sometime between December 10 and 15, 1946, Elizabeth dated a naval officer whose name they never knew. (How lovely to have a strange man coming to your house to pick up the strange woman who’s living with you for free.) Between December 17 and 20, Elizabeth had four dates with Robert “Red” Manley. On December 22, Elizabeth received a $100 money order from Gordon Fickling. On December 24, Elizabeth went on a date with a man named Frank Dominguez, and on the twenty-sixth, she went out with Robert Manley again. On the twenty-seventh, she had a date with another unidentified suitor. On the thirty-first, she had a second date with Frank Dominguez. On January 7, she received a telegram from Robert Manley before going out on a date with a man named Sam Navarra.
Elizabeth Short took gross advantage of Dorothy and Elvira French’s goodwill. She overstayed her welcome and brought all manner of strange men to their home while she was hitting long-suffering Gordon Fickling up for cash. (The $100 he sent her in 1946 was roughly equivalent to $1,500 in today’s money.) She was spending Fickling’s money at the same time she was sponging off the Frenchs and dating a platoon of men.
On January 8, Elizabeth finally left the French home with Robert Manley and went to a motel with him. The next day, January 9, 1947, Manley drove her to the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. That was the last confirmed sighting of Elizabeth Short alive.
Just for the record, in the 176 days that Elizabeth Short was known to be in California before her death, she lived at a minimum of eleven different addresses. That averages a new location every sixteen days.
She also spent the night with at least seven different men that researchers are aware of during this interval. What went on during those nights is anyone’s guess, but at the very least Elizabeth Short was in a hotel, house, car, or apartment overnight with Gordon Fickling, Sid Zaid, Mark Hansen, Bill Robinson, Marvin Margolis, Glen Sterns, and Robert Manley at some point before her death. She may have also spent the night at a motel with Carl Balsiger. Additionally, the Frenchs reported her having at least one date with an unidentified naval officer, a man named Frank Dominguez, and another man named Sam Navarra while she was living at the French house in San Diego. The record is not clear if she stayed out overnight with these men.
To be continued…
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