5. The Black Dahlia’s Killer Left Cryptic Messages
In 1947, the body of a 22-year-old actress named Elizabeth Short was abandoned on the lawn of a suburban neighborhood in Los Angeles. Her body had been drained of blood, and she had been cut in half. Her lips were cut on the edges of her mouth, as if to give her a very wide smile. (This would end up being the inspiration for The Joker in The Dark Night.) The woman’s identity was unknown, and the newspapers reported finding the body of a “Jane Doe”.
A few days later, the medical examiner received an envelope in the mail from the killer. They used words cut out from a magazine to send the message: “Los Angeles Examiner and other Los Angeles Papers- Here is Dahlia’s belongings. Letter to follow.” Inside the envelope were Elizabeth Short’s social security card, birth certificate, photos, and other personal identification. They rubbed gasoline over the paper to get rid of any fingerprints. From then on, the letters were signed “Black Dahlia Avenger“. Clearly, this murderer was mentally unstable, and they took a lot of joy out of killing and dismembering the body of this innocent woman, but the identity of this killer was never discovered, and probably went on to kill more women during their lifetime.