EP 80 | Elizabeth Short: Separating Fact From Fiction In The Black Dahlia Unsolved Murder Case (part one)

Elizabeth Short in life, The Black Dahlia in death. What do people really understand about the woman before she became the poster girl for true crime curiousities? Most know her as the Black Dahlia, but few know Elizabeth Short was a young woman whose life was marked by tragedy long before her brutal 1947 murder made headlines across America.

In part one, we separate fact from fiction in the life of Elizabeth Short, who was born and raised in Medford, Massachusetts. Her tragic story has been sensationalized for decades, but few know about the real woman behind the gruesome headlines.

Born in Hyde Park, Boston in 1924, Elizabeth was the middle daughter of five girls. Her early years took a devastating turn when her father, Cleo Short, lost everything in the 1929 Wall Street Crash and abandoned his family, staging his own suicide by leaving his car on a bridge. For twelve years, Elizabeth's mother Phoebe believed she was a widow, struggling alone to raise five daughters during the Great Depression.

The family's world was upended again in 1942 when a letter arrived from the supposedly dead Cleo, revealing he was alive and living in California. Elizabeth, seeking connection with the father she thought dead, traveled west only to find disappointment. Their reunion lasted barely a month. Her life continued on a path of heartbreak when her boyfriend, decorated WWII pilot Major Matt Gordon, died in a plane crash just weeks before Japan's surrender in 1945.

Despite media portrayal of Elizabeth as a "party girl," records reveal just one minor brush with the law—an underage drinking incident. The nickname "Black Dahlia" wasn't media sensationalism but originated during her time in Long Beach, inspired by her striking appearance: dark hair, pale skin, and signature red lipstick.

The cruel irony of Elizabeth Short's story lies in how she's remembered only for her brutal end, while the resilient women in her family—her mother and sisters who lived well into their 90s—carried the burden of never knowing what happened to their beloved Elizabeth. By exploring her life before the headlines, we honor the real woman who existed beyond the infamous case that still captivates America's imagination.

This is part one. In the next episode, I examine Elizabeth Short's final days and the enduring mystery of how this young woman met this fate and w

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Crime of the Truest Kind
• 3:15 Elizabeth Short: The Black Dahlia Case
• 10:09 The Short Family History
• 17:36 Cleo's Disappearance and Family Abandonment
• 20:13 Elizabeth's Life After Her Father
• 24:24 Episode Preview and Show Information

Transcript

Anngelle Wood: 0:00

Well, hello, my name is Anngelle Wood and this is Crime of the Truest Kind.

Anngelle Wood: 0:26

Hello, hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Yes, my name is Anngelle Wood. Yes, this is Crime of the Truest Kind and yes, it is Massachusetts and New England crime stories, regional history, always advocacy focused. We had an advocacy event last weekend with the Massachusetts State Police Unresolved Cases Unit and the Boston Police Department's Cold Case Unit, and I met a lot of great people. More events to come as part of MMMPAC, the Massachusetts Missing and Murdered Persons Advocacy Coalition.

Anngelle Wood: 1:06

I am going to AdvocacyCon at the end of March. I will tell you all about it. Thank you to our patrons. Superstar Lisa McColgan, solid Gold, holly Kate M, meryl, michelle with one L. Pam K V Brant and Wicked Cool, amy Brandy Courtney, georgia, welcome Georgia. Lolo, mark, rebecca. I sent some Patreon messages out. I have been perfecting our live streaming capabilities and I sent the call out to Patreon members to say would you hang for some live streams? I will schedule one in early April. No joke, we'll do it. Thank you for coming out to the Stoneham Library event. It was great to see you. Special thanks to Lily and Anna from Stoneham Public Library. Next live show next Thursday, march 13th at Off Cabot in Beverly Mass. True Crime North Shore Prepping stories now Get tickets. Crimeofthechewestkindcom.

Anngelle Wood: 2:04

At last week's library event I told the story of Elizabeth Shorts, a young woman from Medford whose early life was definitely not easy. She only became known in death. Hers is one of the most famous cases in all of crime history, infamously unsolved. She's like a character in the lore of true crime. Her story has been told and retold and repackaged and hijacked and told again in books and movies and podcasts and shows, while rooted in the real events of Elizabeth's case. The facts and fiction are often fused together. The oldest unsolved case in Los Angeles history and possibly all of California. One of the oldest unsolved cases in all of US history, second only to the infamous Villisca axe murders in Villisca, iowa. Am I saying that right? Villisca Iowa? On the night of June 9th 1912, eight people, including six children, were brutally murdered with an axe. Despite decades of investigations, new detectives, fresh eyes and several suspects, that case remains unsolved.

Anngelle Wood: 3:19

This is episode 80, facts from fiction in the life of Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia. She's from Medford, massachusetts. Hers is a notable unsolved case in the annals of true crime the murder of Elizabeth Short in 1947,. Her body was found in an undeveloped field, mutilated, severed, exsanguinated, posed, found in the Lemur Park area of Los Angeles, california. This case has captivated public interest for decades, but the identity of her killer remains a mystery.

Anngelle Wood: 4:06

Elizabeth Short in life, black Dahlia in death the brutality of her end is what has kept her case in the forefront of our crime curiosities, known as the Black Dahlia murder. Her true existence is mostly overlooked. A lot has been made of her murder. There's even a band, the Black Dahlia Murder, from Waterford Michigan, melodic death metal. That's a thing. Little about her life is told, only how she died or how she was found. Because we don't know exactly how she died. So many untruths have been perpetuated over the decades, repeated so much that the truth has gotten lost. She was a beautiful young woman, just 22 when she was killed.

Anngelle Wood: 5:00

Elizabeth, or Beth, was born on July 24, 1924 in Hyde Park, a neighborhood of Boston. The Short family had left Maine and moved to Massachusetts, settling in Medford, a city about 6.7 miles from downtown Boston, on the Mystic River in Middlesex County. According to the 2023 US Census estimates are 58,744 residents of Medford. That's down from 2020. I wonder if college enrollment affects that. Tufts University straddles the Medford-Somerville line. The famous Paul Revere Midnight Ride routed through Medford Square. Now, thanks to this story, I now know that the first four-wheeled roller skate was invented in Medford and that there's a National Museum of Roller Skating in Lincoln, nebraska. You're welcome.

Anngelle Wood: 5:57

There are a lot of notable people listed as being from or associated with Medford. Highlights include actress Julia Nicholson of the many credits she has racked up the HBO series, mayor of Easttown I have watched well a number of times. Alexis Ohanian, who founded Reddit in Medford At 72 Bristol Road, I learned. According to a post on well Reddit, he is also the husband of the more famous Serena Williams Comic, robert Kelly from Medford. Grammy award-winning jazz drummer, terry Lynn Carrington, from Medford I believe she is the youngest student to receive a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music, at the age of 11. Bia, rapper and TV personality, and every year seems to show up on the Boston Music Awards nominee list and has taken a couple of them home. Also listed among people who have spent time in Medford Jessica Biel she attended Tufts. Maria Menounos she worked for the E News Network and I more recently saw her doing some news feature or something for a gas station video. I remember one of her earliest acting jobs was a commercial for the radio station that I used to work at called WFNX. Maybe you remember it. Oh, and the Jingle Bells composer, james Lord Pierpoint. That song was originally called the One Horse Open Sleigh Simplicity folks.

Anngelle Wood: 7:34

Elizabeth's father, cleo Elvin Short Jr, was a Navy man from Gloucester, virginia. He met Phoebe Mae Sawyer. She was raised in Millbridge, maine. Her father had died young, at just 38. The family lived in Millbridge that's past Bar Harbor, past Camden and in the heart of wild blueberry country, and home to Jasper Weinman and son. They are reportedly the leading grower and distributor of Maine's famous wild blueberries. Maine blueberries can be like the size of your fist and Millbridge's population has never cracked 1,400 in any US census. It's small. Cleo Short enlisted in the military in 1917, and then he met Phoebe and they married on April 11, 1918, in Portland, maine. The Shorts had five daughters, with Elizabeth landing smack dab in the middle.

Anngelle Wood: 8:34

Older sister, virginia May, was born on November 23, 1920, in Portland. She married a man named Aidan Charles West on February 26, 1945, in Los Angeles. They lived in Northern California. It's unknown whether they had children or how many, but Virginia died on September 13, 1985, at the age of 64. Her husband, adrian West, died only two months later, on November 28th 1985.

Anngelle Wood: 9:05

Second sister, dorothea, born in 1922, in Massachusetts, she went on to join the waves during World War II and decoded Japanese messages. She married a man named Norman Francis Frank Slosser, an Air Force bomber pilot, in 1948. They moved to the Kansas City area where she would volunteer at the VA hospital for more than a decade. They had five children, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Dorothea died on April 30, 2012. Unclear of her actual birthday, she was 90, or soon to be 90. Elizabeth was the next daughter born to Cleo and Phoebe.

Anngelle Wood: 9:48

We will get to her story and there is a lot about her life available to tell. Next among the short daughters was Elnora to tell. Next among the short daughters was Elnora, or Nani, born November 7th 1925 in Boston. She married a man named Duncan Arthur Chelmers from Melrose. They lived in the area, eventually moving to Florida A very New England thing to do. I've seen the town Now for nothing. It's a better movie than the Departed Fight me. Elnora died on January 9, 2022, in Vero Beach, florida. She was 96 years old.

Anngelle Wood: 10:30

Their youngest sister was named Muriel. Her information was more difficult to find, but with a little digging into public records I found her. Muriel Arlene Short was born on October 23, 1928. Her records say in Medford and me being me, I wasn't sure that Medford had a hospital then. So here's how my mind works I have to know Was there a hospital in Medford in the 1920s? The answer Medford's Lawrence Memorial Hospital, goes back to 1924. That's always confused me when I saw the highway sign, as there is a Lawrence General Hospital. In Lawrence there's also the Wakefield Melrose. That's close by Sidebar. I worked at Melrose Wakefield Hospital many years ago in the nurse's department doing administrative stuff and I learned some very interesting things about labor and delivery and weighing things. I also binged the entire 13 seasons of Call the Midwife, so it is possible that she was born at home, all right.

Anngelle Wood: 11:36

Moving on, muriel was the fifth daughter born to Cleo and Phoebe Short. She married a man named Earl McNair. They had three children Arlene, janice and Marsha many grandchildren and great-grandchildren and, like many of the women in her family, muriel McNair lived a very long life. Sadness visited the family again when her daughter Arlene passed away in 2019. There's that saying that no mother should outlive their kid. That rings true. Muriel died on June 29, 2023, at the age of 94. Records show they lived in Arlington and then Merrimack. Her location of death is listed as Newburyport.

Anngelle Wood: 12:26

It's really very important to recognize the matriarch of this entire family, phoebe Mae Sawyer Short, who died on March 1st 1992 in Vero Beach, florida. She was 94 years old. The women of the Short family faced truly awful life events, but they soldiered on, like many women had to do. There were many descendants of the Short family tree who were left to carry this generational trauma. Why am I telling you about her family? These people lived decades and decades never knowing what happened to their daughter and their sister. Their story takes a sad turn much earlier than most realize when their father, cleo, loses everything in the Wall Street crash of 1929.

Anngelle Wood: 13:22

He was believed to be a salesman of what I'm not sure it was pre-prohibition, when enthusiasts looked for ways to enjoy their golf game in smaller spaces. You know we've all done a little putt-putt right. Enter the era of miniature golf. The first dedicated course came in 1917, as the United States was entering World War I. It was a hit Mini -golf. The war, not so much.

Anngelle Wood: 13:49

The mini-golf craze got the attention of Cleo short. He made his way into the business and opened a course with the plan of expanding. But it was not to be. As the 1920s roared on, it was the loudest in the New York Stock Exchange. Share prices rose to unprecedented heights. The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared to 63 in August of 1921 and peaked at 381 in September of 1929. Economist Irving Fisher declared stock prices at a permanently high plateau. You know what happens when something plateaus the only way to go is down. It was Monday, october 28, 1929. The Dow declined nearly 13%. The next day, black Tuesday, the market dropped nearly 12%. By mid-November the Dow had lost almost half its value. Those windfalls turned into a meltdown. Wall Street crashed and burned and Federal Reserve leaders differed on how to respond to what was happening.

Anngelle Wood: 14:58

The Great Depression came to post-World War I America and changed the game, literally and figuratively. People could not afford to build quality courses, but the interest in the game didn't wane. People sourced available material off the streets to build courses and creative obstacles were born. It was more popular than ever. It's estimated that over 4 million people were playing mini-golf in the United States.

Anngelle Wood: 15:27

But the future was not so rosy for Cleo Short. His burgeoning mini-golf park business went bust. He lost everything in the crash, his personal Great Depression. Rather than take his hits, face the loss and his responsibilities to his family, he looked for a way out. He disappeared. Cleo Short's car was found abandoned on a bridge. He is believed to have died by jumping off the Charlestown Bridge into the Charles River, or the North End Bridge or the North Washington Street Bridge, it depends on who you talk to. But the decades-old dispute was put to rest last year when it was renamed for Bill Russell, the legendary Celtic player. The William Felton-Bill Russell Bridge was dedicated in October 2024.

Anngelle Wood: 16:23

Phoebe Short believed her husband was dead. What choice did she have? Why else did he not return to his family, though I would suspect Phoebe knew something in hindsight anyway? But Cleo Short left their family on purpose and she would learn something much darker in the years ahead. So, left with nothing and five young daughters to raise, she went to work, taking a job as a bookkeeper. Time passed and Elizabeth grew. She developed a respiratory condition severe enough that she had lung surgery at 15. The New England cold was brutal on her, so Phoebe sent her to Miami to stay with friends during the winter months. Elizabeth would split her time between Medford and Miami, eventually dropping out of high school In December of 1942, a bombshell arrived in the mail A letter from a ghost, someone claiming to be her dead husband, cleo Short.

Anngelle Wood: 17:35

He was alive and living in Vallejo, california. Why he decided to confess to her all those years later I do not know. Was it to offer his abandoned family an apology To clear his conscience? For 12 years Phoebe got by without him. She raised her girls on her own. Once she learned the truth about what he had done, she found that to be unforgivable. He left in 1930, when he lost all of their money. The hammer of the Great Depression had fallen. The impact felt no greater than for Phoebe as she struggled to raise her children alone. Elizabeth had to have seen the hardships her mother faced. Yet that dream of knowing the father she thought was dead, that pull was strong. I wonder why he even told them. Why did he write to Phoebe Short? He was a ghost from her past that she wanted to forget.

Anngelle Wood: 18:32

And despite it all, elizabeth went to California to be with him. It was a valiant effort on her part, but it was not the magical reunion she had hoped for. He was not the kind and doting father she needed. He did not make up for all that lost time. He was absent from their lives. She left within about a month of her arrival. In Vallejo, he was more a boss than a dad and she was not there to be his servant.

Anngelle Wood: 19:01

Next up for her was a job in the post exchange at Camp Cook, the Air Force Base near Lompoc, california, where she was declared Camp Cutie. From there she went to Santa Barbara where, on September 23, 1943, elizabeth was arrested for underage drinking at the El Paseo restaurant. Paseo restaurant. Despite all the things made up for a sexy story about a murdered party girl, it was the one and only time Elizabeth had gotten into trouble. She was photographed, fingerprinted, and the jail matron put her on a bus back to her mother in Massachusetts. This turn of events would prove monumental.

Anngelle Wood: 19:44

In what came later, elizabeth returned to Florida, making only occasional visits to Massachusetts. Florida was much kinder to her chronic respiratory issues. She was plagued by asthma and bronchitis. It is there where she met Major Matt Gordon, a decorated pilot with the US Army Air Forces. He had been injured in a crash and was on leave recovering when they met. He was born and raised in Pueblo, colorado, and enlisted at the age of 21. He had flown with a group nicknamed the Flying Tigers.

Anngelle Wood: 20:18

In the early years of World War II. The Flying Tigers were sent to help defeat the Japanese in China and were famous for the distinctive shark face painted on the nose of their P-40 fighters. He was injured in a crash on February 25, 1944, while piloting an L-5B Sentinel reconnaissance plane. It's what they call a flying jeep. While he searched for a downed pilot, his aircraft went down. He did recover and return to active duty. There was a photo of them showing the couple smiling, looking very happy together.

Anngelle Wood: 20:57

Elizabeth had told friends that Matt had proposed to her and she accepted, excited about what was to come. But that was not to be. Another cruel hand of fate was dealt to this young woman. On August 10, 1945, major Gordon was killed while piloting a P-51 Mustang near West Bengal, india, just a few weeks before Japan's official surrender on September 2, 1945. He was just 26 years old and Elizabeth, she was devastated by his loss. Elizabeth was clearly traumatized. The reunion with her father was a complete disappointment. Her boyfriend, maybe fiancé, was killed in a plane crash. Her boyfriend, maybe fiancé, was killed in a plane crash. She seemed lost.

Anngelle Wood: 21:51

She would make her way west again in July 1946 to visit Army Air Force Lieutenant Joseph Gordon Fickling, whom she knew from Florida. He was stationed in Long Beach. Most accounts say the Black Dahlia nickname was the result of media sensationalism. I mean the competing LA newspapers did workshop some nicknames of their own in the headlines. But Black Dahlia came from her time in Long Beach and the people at a drugstore she frequented while staying there. Dark, dark hair, hail, porcelain skin, red lipstick. Hair hail, porcelain skin, red lipstick. She left Long Beach and landed in San Diego and bunked with her friend Dorothy French. While there she met traveling salesman Robert Red Manley, the married salesman, a fact he did keep from her. They would correspond for a few months. Her they would correspond for a few months. She asked him for a ride to Los Angeles in early January 1947. He agreed. Red picked her up at Dorothy's on January 8th and they headed for Los Angeles. That would be the last time her friend Dorothy would see Elizabeth before she made the nightly news.

Anngelle Wood: 23:04

What comes next in Elizabeth's story has been told and retold and repackaged and retold again. In the next episode we will walk through the last days of Elizabeth Short's life before she was found in that lot in Lemur Park in Los Angeles, california. Thank you for listening. My name is Angelle Wood. This is Crime of the Truest Kind. I talk about Massachusetts and New England crime stories. History, always advocacy focused. Elizabeth Short was from Massachusetts. Her story, her whole story, needs to be told.

Anngelle Wood: 23:48

Thank you for listening to the show. Thank you for supporting the show. Each and everything you do helps Tell people about the show. Share it in the groups that you post in on Reddit and Facebook. Share it on social media. Post in on Reddit and Facebook. Share it on social media. Leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Give the dogs a bone. Drop a tip in the jar. You will help send me to AdvocacyCon in Indianapolis at the end of the month. Follow the show at Crime of the Truest Kind. Become a patron on Patreon Four tiers starting at just one dollar on Patreon. Everything is linked at crimeofthetruestkindcom. If you have a case that you want to tell me about, email at crimeofthetruestkind at gmailcom. Come to the show Thursday night, march 13th off Cabot M Beverly.

Anngelle Wood: 24:42

True Crime North Shore A history of murder, mystery and missing persons. I talk about crimes and I talk about advocacy. Cases planned, including the story of Claire Gravel of Beverly. Michael O'Gorman of Gloucester, lois Centifanti of Lynn Jesus de la Cruz, also of Lynn Karen Sharp of Wenham. Lisa Voy of Revere Henry Bedard Jr of Swampscott, leanne Redden of Lynn Beryl Atherton, the unsolved case from Marblehead. And I'm researching the Elliot Chambers fire of Beverly. I always save time at the end of every show for a Q&A, so bring your questions or your comments or your stories. They're always great and that's what's on the agenda. This is episode number 80. That feels amazing. You can listen to all past episodes of Crime of the Truest Kind wherever you get podcasts. All right, I gotta jump Lock your goddamn doors.