LAPD DETECTIVE IS CERTAIN HIS FATHER KILLED BLACK DAHLIA AND MORE

"The Black Dahlia" was a nickname given to Elizabeth Short, an American woman who was the victim of a gruesome and much-publicized murder.

Elizabeth Short was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 29, 1924. Twenty-two years later, Short, an aspiring actress, was brutally murdered in Los Angeles, California, her body cut in half and severely mutilated. Her body was found on January 15, 1947, in a vacant lot near Leimert Park. The Black Dahlia's killer was never found, making her murder one of the oldest cold case files in L.A. to date, as well as the city's most famous.

By the mid-1940s, Elizabeth Short was living in Los Angeles, California, working as a waitress to support herself while dreaming of catching her big break into Hollywood's acting scene. Her chance at stardom, however, would never come. In January 1947, a horrific tragedy occurred: At the age of 22, Short was brutally murdered in Los Angeles, her body cut in half and severely mutilated. DOCUMENTARY ON 48 HRS HERE

Her body was found, nude and posed, by a local female resident on January 15, 1947, in a vacant lot near Leimert Park, on the 3800 block of L.A.'s South Norton Avenue. "It was pretty gruesome," Brian Carr, a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department who has long worked on the Dahlia case, later said. "I just can't imagine someone doing that to another human being." In addition to dissecting and mutilating her body, Short's killer had drained her corpse of blood and scrubbed it clean.

Skipped town: LA surgeon Dr George Hodel reportedly skipped town before he could be arrested in connection with the murder of Elizabeth Smart

Son of George Hodel, Steve Hodel a retired LAPD police detective suspects he's getting closer to solving a series of 1940s Hollywood murders, including that of the Black Dahlia — and the man he suspects to be the killer is his own father. Steve Hodel first began to suspect George Hodel while going through his belongings after his death at age 91 in 1999. That's when he says he found two photos resembling Elizabeth Short, who became known as the Black Dahlia—and DA records confirm Hodel was indeed under suspicion in the 1947 case. READ MORE HERE