Elizabeth Short was born on July 29, 1924, in Boston, in the state of Massachusetts, in the United States.
Shortly after birth, Elizabeth’s father abandons the family, leaving her mother and four sisters without any support.
Elizabeth was diagnosed with an asthma problem, so she had to change her residence seasonally, spending summers in Medford and winters in Florida.
Although the relationship was not good, Elizabeth went to live with her father in Los Angeles in 1943.
That same year Elizabeth was arrested for drinking as a minor, and the police transferred her to Medford, where she would spend time in the juvenile authorities.
After this episode, Elizabeth moved back to Florida, where she lived in different neighborhoods, working in many trades such as a clerk or waitress.
At that time, she met Matthew M. Gordon Jr., a pilot who would propose to her while convalescing from a plane crash in China. Elizabeth accepted, but when Gordon was returning to the United States, he again had another accident that cost him his life.
In 1946 she returned to California, where she lived with an old boyfriend, near Long Beach.
On January 15, 1947, Elizabeth was found dead with her body terribly mutilated and split in two. His heart, intestines and spleen had been removed and he had received a cut from both sides of the lips towards the ears, with what was called “the Glasglow smile”. The murder was never solved.
At that time Elizabeth was nicknamed the “Black Dahlia.”