Overview
- On January 15, 1947, Elizabeth Short’s bisected and posed body was found in a Los Angeles vacant lot with a so‑called “Glasgow smile.”
- An autopsy documented ligature marks and concluded she died from hemorrhaging and head trauma before her body was surgically divided using a hemicorporectomy technique.
- Police mounted one of Los Angeles’s largest investigations, questioning more than 150 men and mobilizing hundreds of officers, yet no suspect was charged.
- Newspapers received taunting letters and a package containing Short’s personal documents wiped clean of prints, and the sender never surfaced.
- Weeks later, Assemblyman C. Don Field proposed a sex‑offender registry, and the killing later fed decades of books, films and sustained public interest.