In 1947, the gruesome murder of a beautiful young girl led to the largest manhunt in the history of the Los Angeles police. The killer managed to deceive both the police and the public. His identity remained unknown, until now at least...
On January 15, 1947, in Los Angeles, the body of a woman was found: the murderer had not only cut the victim's body in half but had also mutilated it in a horrific way and posed it, as if to leave a provocative message. Even the most hardened detectives of the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office were horrified when they arrived at the crime scene.
This crime, which until now remained unsolved, became known in history as the murder of the Black Dahlia. It made headlines in newspapers across the country for weeks, as the Los Angeles Police struggled in vain to locate the killer. The murdered girl, as it turned out, was the beautiful Elizabeth Short, twenty-two years old. She had come to the West from Massachusetts, like so many women before her, seeking fame and fortune in the movie capital of the world. Shortly after her murder, the Los Angeles newspapers began receiving messages from someone who called himself "The Avenger of the Black Dahlia." For weeks, the killer taunted the police, openly enjoying the frenzy he had created and his ability to escape, just like his English counterpart, Jack the Ripper, had done in London sixty years earlier. [...]
Along with the revelation of the circumstances of the Black Dahlia murder, the case of the Jean French murder, also known as the "Red Lipstick Murder," was clarified. However, the question remains: why were these notorious murders not solved at the time? Because, as the author of this book proves, the entire leadership of the local police force was mobilized to cover up the guilty party, who had already been identified since 1947. It was someone who was untouchable due to his social position and who remained free and continued his actions as a serial killer of women. [...]