THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER

1/15/1947 - Taking a morning walk with her three-year-old daughter to a nearby shoe store through Leimert Park along South Norton Avenue in Los Angeles (between Coliseum Street and West 39th Street), at around 10:00 am, local housewife Betty Bersinger notices what appears to be a discarded and broken department store mannequin laying in the weeds of a vacant lot just off the sidewalk. It is not a mannequin however, but is actually the horribly mutilated body of 22-year-old murder victim Elizabeth Short ... a woman who will soon become famous in death as the mysterious Black Dahlia.
 
Short 

Stifling a scream when she recognizes she is looking at a corpse cut into two pieces, Bersinger grabs her daughter, runs to a nearby house, and immediately calls the police.  Within minutes, Officers Frank Perkins and Will Fitzgerald arrive on the scene, and seeing the state of the body, call for assistance ... soon, the area is swarming with more cops, newspaper reporters, photographers, and ghoulish curiosity seekers that damage the crime scene and destroy evidence.  The hideous condition of the body makes LAPD Captain John Donahoe assign the case to his top detective and his partner, Detective Sergeant Harry Hansen and Finis Brown.  Investigation started, the as yet unidentified body of Short is taken to the Los Angeles County Morgue for an autopsy, and her fingerprints are sent to FBI headquarters in Washington D.C., with the help of the Los Angeles Examiner's "Soundphoto" equipment (in a squalid moment for the Fourth Estate, a newspaper reporter will pump Short's mother for info on her life by lying that she has just won a local beauty pageant ... only when he has what he wants does he tell Phoebe Short of the death of her daughter).

Vacant Lot

Crime Scene

Bersinger

L - R ... Hansen & Brown

A very personal killing by someone, Short's body is completely severed at the waist and drained of all blood, at some other site the body has been washed, her face bears numerous slashings, including a "Glasgow smile" in which the corners of the mouth are cut all the way to the ears, there are cuts to her thighs and breasts, the intestines of the corpse are neatly tucked beneath her buttocks, the body is posed with hands over head, elbows bent, and her legs spread open, there are ligature marks to be found on the ankles, wrists, and neck, and there are bruises on the front and right side of her scalp consist with a beating to the head taking place.

The Investigation Begins

Morgue

Name finally known using her fingerprints, police dig into Short's life to try and find who killed her and discover she was born in Boston in 1924 into a well-to-do family (until the Depression destroys the father's miniature golf course building business), she had a bad case of asthma and bronchitis as a child, spent time living in the widely separated communities of Miami, Vallejo, Lompoc, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles, and had lost two lovers to WWII. An aspiring actress and model in a town full of such dreamers, it is noted that Short liked to drink, go dancing at night clubs, and had been missing for a week before her body was discovered in Leimert Park.  Rumors that she worked as a prostitute, or that she had a child size vagina and couldn't have sex are shot down, but no one can stop William Randolph Hearst from seizing the opportunity to sell more papers by transforming the black tailored suit wearing women into a femme fatale seeking romance and success in Hollywood called the Black Dahlia (a recently released crime thriller starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake is called The Blue Dahlia).

Headlines

1943 Mug Shot - Underage Drinking

Short and Army Major Matthew Gordon

Partying At Center

And sadly for justice, it all leads nowhere, becoming one of the most infamous unsolved murder cases in American history. Despite thousands of hours of investigation by hundreds of police officers (many borrowed from other nearby agencies), and scores of suspects being interviewed, no one will ever be arrested and brought to trial for the murder (there will be over 60 confessions to the crime over the years, none of which the authorities will ever find viable) and eventually the case goes cold ... but never entirely. Over the ensuing years since Short's body is discovered, newspaper, book, and screen writers will keep returning to the case ... along with a cottage industry of true crime books (many featuring folks accusing dead family members of being the killer), Lucie Arnaz will play Short on television, the crime will be featured in the book True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne, and in the movie version starring Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall, James Ellroy's novel "The Black Dahlia" will be published in 1987, actress Mena Suvari will play Short in an episode of American Horror Story, the killing will play a role in the novel "Toros & Torsos" by Craig McDonald, famed author Joyce Carol Oates will write a short story called "Black Dahlia and White Rose," and Brian De Palma will make  a movie called "The Black Dahlia" in 2006.

Former Suspect - Salesman Robert "Red" Manley

Best Seller

Movie Poster

Gone but certainly not forgotten, Elizabeth Short is buried at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.  Were she still alive, Short would be 92 in 2016!

Grave Marker

Elizabeth Short

THE END OF MR. EARP

1/13/1929 - One of the epic lives in American history comes to a quiet end in Los Angeles, California, with the passing of 80-year-old Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp.

Wyatt Earp - At About 39 Years

Born to Nicholas Porter Earp and his second wife, Virginia Ann Cooksey, in Monmouth, Illinois, in 1848, Wyatt is named after his father's commanding officer in the Mexican-American War, Captain Wyatt Berry Stapp of the 2nd Company Illinois Mounted Volunteers.  Growing up, Wyatt receives lessons in responsibilities tending to the family's 80 acres of corn near Pella, Iowa.  Then, in 1865, his wanderings through the American West begin with a wagon train journey to California.

Wyatt And His Mother - 1856

Boyhood Home - Pella, Iowa

Adventure to adventure, at 17, Wyatt is a teamster transporting cargo to Salt Lake City by way of a route moving through the beach town of Wilmington, San Bernadino county, and the small town of Las Vegas, Nevada.  In 1868, he transports supplies to men working on the Union Pacific Railroad, and reputation gained for fairness, he begins officiating boxing matches in the Wyoming Territory.  1868 is also the year he becomes involved in law enforcement for the first time, becoming a constable in Lamar, Missouri (helped out by his father being the area's justice of the peace).  Gainfully employed and surrounded by family, believing he is putting down roots, Wyatt marries Urilla Sutherland in 1870 (her parents own the town's Exchange Hotel), but tragically, his pregnant bride dies later that same year.

Urilla

Wyatt - 21

Devastated by the turn his life has taken, for awhile Wyatt's actions are off kilter and out of control, and include facing theft and forgery charges, accusations of horse stealing, an escape from the jail in Peoria, Illinois (climbing out through the roof), drunk and disorderly conduct, running a brothel, and serving as a bouncer for the cat house his brother James is running in the cow town of Wichita, Kansas.  And it is Wichita where Wyatt will regain control of his life (it is during this period in his life that he also dabbles in being a buffalo hunter).

Wichita, Kansas

In 1875, Wyatt becomes a member of the Wichita marshal's office ... and also deals faro at the town's Long Branch Saloon.  Fired for getting in a fist fight with the town's former marshal, Bill Smith, over an upcoming election, Wyatt is next off to Dodge City, Kansas, where brother James is once more in the brothel business ... there, Wyatt is appointed an assistant town marshal (he also takes time off to explore business opportunities to be found in the boomtown of Deadwood in the Dakota Territory) and meets some of the characters who will spice up his story ... folks like gunfighter John Henry "Doc" Holliday, Holliday's common-law wife, Mary Katherine Horoney Cummings, better known as Big Nose Kate, the Masterson brothers, James and Bat, gunfighter Luke Short, and prostitute Celia Anne "Mattie" Blaylock, who will become Wyatt's common-law wife.
 
Holliday & Big Nose Kate
 
James & Bat Masterson
 
Short & Blaylock

On 7/26/1878, Wyatt kills his first man when he shoots George Hoy off the cowboy's horse as the man drunkenly attempts to shoot up one of Dodge City's entertainment establishments (a leg wound, gangrene sets in and Hoy dies on August 21st after the limb is amputated), the Comique Theater.  Relocation time again, in 1879, Wyatt decides to lend a helping hand to his brothers' Arizona business efforts, resigns his marshaling job, and moves to the new, and wild, mining town of Tombstone.  In Tombstone, the Earps stake mining claims and file papers for water rights, James works as a bar tender, Wyatt becomes a shotgun messenger for Wells Fargo, and Virgil is the town constable of nearby Prescott.  Shortly afterwards, Doc Holliday and younger brothers Morgan and Warren show up in town too.  Involved in the growing community, it does not take long before the Earps and friends tangle with the local criminal element, a batch of rustlers, thieves, and killer gunmen that call themselves "The Cowboys."

Tombstone - 1881
 
Morgan & Virgil

Over the next year, there will be confrontations with cowboys over rustled horses and cattle, Wyatt will be appointed Deputy Sheriff of Pima County (which includes the town of Tombstone), he will pistol whip Curly Bill Brocius after the drunken gunman accidentally kills Tombstone town marshal Fred White, a prize horse stolen from Wyatt is discovered in the possession of Ike Clanton and his brother Billy, Earp and Cowboy supporter Cochise County sheriff Johnny Behan share the bed of 18-year-old Josephine Sarah Marcus (who will eventually become Wyatt's common-law wife), Wyatt gains a one-quarter interest in the faro games at the Oriental Saloon (for which he serves as a manager and enforcer), stands down a mob intent on lynching gambler Michael O'Rourke for the killing of mining engineer Henry Schneider, serves on the posse that chases after the silver bullion robbers that kill stagecoach driver Eli "Budd" Philpot and passenger Peter Roerig, and serves on the posse that arrests Cowboy favorites, Deputy Sheriff Pete Spence and Deputy Sheriff Frank Stilwell after the lawmen rob a stagecoach outside of the town of Bisbee.  In October the troubles between the two groups boil over in 30 seconds of mad gunfire that will come to be called the "Gunfight at the OK Corral."

Josephine Earp

Curly Bill

An argument between Ike Clanton and Doc Holliday, an argument between Ike Clanton with Wyatt, Virgil pistol whips Ike when the drunken cowboy refuses to give up his weapon, Ike and Wyatt threaten each other, Wyatt pistol whips Cowboy Tom McLaury for carrying a concealed weapon, and the Earps seeking to confiscate even more Cowboy weapons leads to the 3:00 in the afternoon gunfight for Tombstone city dominance.  Representing the town's law and order faction are Town Marshal Virgil Earp, Assistant Town Marshal Morgan Earp, Deputy Marshal Wyatt Earp, and temporary Deputy Marshal Doc Holliday, while representing the area's rowdier elements are Cowboys Billy Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton, and Tom and Frank McLaury (28 and 33 respectively). Asked by Virgil to give up their weapons as the Cowboys stand in a narrow lot to the side of C. S. Fly's Photographic Studio, six doors west of the rear entrance of the OK Corral (the men are between six to ten feet away from each other), someone instead draws their pistol and fires, and general firing breaks out among the men ... when the bullets stop flying and the smoke settles, Billy Clanton (19) and the McLaury brothers are dead (Billy Claiborne and Ike Clanton flee the area), Morgan Earp suffers wounds to both shoulder blades, Virgil Earp is shot in the calf, and Doc Holliday suffers a flesh wound to his hip. Only Wyatt emerges from the gun battle unhurt.

Gunfight
 
L-R ... Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, and Billy Clanton 

Tombstone Boot Hill

Legend established, the gun battle however does not end the killings between the two factions ... in the days and months ahead, Virgil Earp is ambushed and made into a cripple by a shotgun blast to his left arm, Morgan Earp is killed by an assassin's bullet while playing billiards, Wyatt kills Frank Stillwell at the Tucson train station as the man prepares to fire on the Earp Family leaving town, and Earp leads a posse of supporters against the Cowboys that includes his brothers Warren and James, Doc Holliday, Sherman McMaster, Jack "Turkey Creek" Johnson, Charles "Harelip Charlie" Smith, Dan Tipton, and John "Texas Jack" Vermillion. When the Earp group finally vacates the Arizona region, the power of the Cowboys is broken, and Florentino "Indian Charlie" Cruz, Curly Bill Brocius, Johnny Barnes, and Johnny Ringo are all bullet riddled corpses that die with their boots on!
 
Ringo & Stillwater

Vendetta ride over, Wyatt will deal faro in Bat Masterson's saloon in Trinidad, Colorado, reunite with Josephine Marcus in San Francisco in 1882 (they will remain together until Wyatt's death 46 years later), gamble and try mining in Silverton, Colorado, help Bat Masterson and Luke Short keep their saloon open in what will be called the Dodge City War, goes mining in Idaho (where he will also be a Deputy Sheriff) and Washington, speculates on San Diego real estate, referees boxing matches, buys four saloons, races a horse named "Otto Rex," owns a horse stable in Santa Rosa, California, referees the heavyweight champonship match between Bob Fitzsimmons and Tom Sharkey (a match that Earp is accused of fixing for calling a punch foul that no one else sees), participates in the Klondike Gold Rush, runs the Dexter Saloon in Nome, Alaska, runs a saloon and gambling house in Seattle, goes gold hunting in Tonopah, Nevada (where he opens yet another drinking establishment that he names the Northern Saloon), at 62, works "outside the law" tracking down miscreants for the L.A. Police Department, works a San Bernadino site in the Whipple Mountains he calls the Happy Days mine, collaborates with John Flood and Stuart Lake on biographies, and lends his western expertise to a number of silent Hollywood filmmakers (he will become good pals with directors Raoul Walsh and John Ford, and actors Douglas Fairbanks, William S. Hart, and Tom Mix).
 
Fitzsimmons & Sharkey

William S. Hart

Wyatt In 1923

A full life, chronic cystitis does what no bullet can, and the former lawman passes on 1/13/1929 ... cremated, his remains are buried in a secret spot in Colma, California.  Rest in peace, Wyatt!

Wyatt

GERALD CHAPMAN'S LAST ARREST

1/18/1925 - Known now to only a handful of criminal historians, the first man to be called "Public Enemy #1" by America's press, fugitive (on the run after breaking out of the Atlanta Federal Prison in March of 1923), notorious robber and murderer, Gerald Chapman, nicknamed "The Count of Gramercy Park" and "The Gentleman Bandit," is arrested by authorities in Muncie, Indiana.

Chapman

Born George Chartres in August of 1887 in the Lower East Side of New York City to a poor, but honest family with Irish roots, Chapman moves from a juvenile delinquent stealing apples to a neighborhood petty crook (his first arrest is at the age of 14) ... a nobody seemingly going nowhere until he is sent to New York's Sing-Sing Prison on a sentence of armed robbery for 10-15 years. After being transferred from Sing-Sing to Auburn Prison, Chapman meets his mentor and future accomplice there, a polished thief named George "Dutch" Anderson (a conman and burglar actually named Ivan Dahl von Teler from a wealthy Denmark family with a college degree from the University of Uppsala and Heidelberg).  It is a partnership that will eventually lead to both men's deaths ... along with several unfortunates that cross their paths.

Anderson

Pupil and willing clay, with tutelage from a man who knows how to move in the upper strata of society when not behind bars (Anderson has studied music and literature, taken courses at the University of Wisconsin, and speaks several languages), Chapman learns how to dress and speak well (at times he will affect a upper-class British accent), appear respectable, use disguises, and plan crimes ahead of their instigation.  Behaving themselves while in training, Chapman and Anderson gain paroles in 1919 and start their criminal operations by going into the bootleg booze business in Toledo, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan, but then escalate their needs for quick cash into armed robberies.  Adding another Sing-Sing alum, Charles Loerber, as their driver (and he will pose as their chauffeur), the men set themselves up in a posh Gramercy Park apartment, where they pose as wealthy businessmen (Chapman becomes oil man G. Vincent Colwell) ... and plan their robberies.

Gramercy Park Digs

After several practice robberies, on 10/24/1921 the gang strikes in what will come to be called "The Great Post Office Robbery."

Mail Truck

Thinking he is sharing the street with a drunken fool, mail truck driver Frank Havernack is surprised moving down Leonard Street when the dark touring car that has already run up on his rear before passing, returns, and when the vehicle draws parallel, has an armed man jump out and on to the truck's running board.  "Pull over and don't make any noise," Chapman tells Havernack as he points his pistol at the driver's stomach.  Order complied with, Havernack stops and is immediately tied up with a laundry sack over his head. Searching through the truck's 33 sacks of regular mail, the robbers find and quickly vanish into the night with what they were looking for ... four pouches of registered mail that yields between $1.1 and $2.4 million dollars in securities, stocks, bonds, jewelry, and cash, the largest robbery in the United States history to date (worth about $29,000,000 in today's dollars).
Anderson Wanted Poster

Flush with cash, the men enjoy spending the spoils of their robbery, but needing the adrenaline of a successful caper going down, they also rob five banks and take roughly $75,000 of American Express proceeds from an armored truck ... the crime that eventually leads authorities their way when Loeber tries to convert some of his paper into untraceable cash, and when busted, blabs about his partners.  Caught and brought downtown for questioning, when investigators don't give their prisoner their full attention, despite being in handcuffs, Chapman establishes his criminal credentials by going out a window 75 feet off the ground where he tries to escape using a narrow ledge.  Recaptured after only minutes of freedom, Chapman and Anderson go to trial denying their involvement, but overwhelming evidence gets them both found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison for armed robbery (for his testimony, Loeber receives much less jail time), sentences the men are to serve at the Atlanta Federal penitentiary.  But both convicts have other ideas however!

Chapman

Atlanta Federal Prison

In 1923, cahooting with a forger named Frank Gray, Chapman feigns an illness that sees him sent to the prison hospital.  There, the two men attack the only guard on duty, force open a barred window, and climb down the wall of the hospital using a rope of knotted sheets.  Outside, but still confined by the walls of the prison (30 feet tall to get over, once two barbed-wire barricades are bested), Chapman causes a total blackout at the facility when he uses a rubber handled knife to short circuit the prison's power source ... and over the wall Chapman and Gray go.  But not for long, in less than 48 hours the men are found to still be in the Atlanta area, surrounded by over a 200-man posse, and taken back into custody.  Fighting the inevitable, Chapman chooses to not go gently and is shot in the arm, hip, and back ... injuries that provide cover for yet another escape ... left alone by his nurse to sleep, in the 22 minutes the nurse is away, Chapman vanishes. Once more he is found though ... this time in hiding in the hospital basement. And once more he gets away when the nurse that locates him goes hysterical and the guard assigned the area gives his full attention to calming the nurse, and misses Chapman slipping out a door dressed as an intern.

Makeshift Knife That Brought The Dark

Headline stuff across the nation much like what John Dillinger will experience a decade later in 1934, the interest in the Chapman saga grows even hotter when Anderson also escapes, tunneling out of the federal institution.  Reunited, the men decide to rob in the east, and hide in the Midwest ... and they recruit another criminal assistant that will prove unreliable, a rookie hoodlum named Walter Shean.  Big score planned, the threesome decide to hit the safe of the biggest department store in New Britain, Connecticut, Davidson & Leventhal.

Davidson & Levental

Letting themselves into the building housing the department store, on October 12, 1924, the burglars are spotted and then confronted by five members of the New Britain police force, and in the resulting shootout, Shean is captured, Chapman and Anderson flee, and 55-year-old Patrolman James Skelly, a 17-year veteran of the department, is hit in the chest three times and dies.

Patrolman Skelly

The downfall of the gang, Chapman and Anderson are soon hit by the double whammies of Shean spilling his guts as to who his partners are, and a farmer in Ohio named Ben Hance advising authorities that he believes two shady characters are lodging at his farm outside of Muncie (and with the death of Skelly, the men lose the public support that their antics once garnered).  Captured by a huge force of local and federal officers (and then watched like a hawk throughout his trial and incarceration), Chapman is returned to Connecticut and placed on trial for the murder of Skelly. Testimony given by Shean and Hance, bullets from the patrolman's body matched to Chapman's pistol, and other evidence offered results in the jury taking only 11 hours (after six days of testimony) to reach a verdict of guilty that comes with a hanging sentence (Chapman will state after the sentence comes down, "Death itself isn't dreadful, but hanging seems an awkward way of ending the adventure.").  There is a problem though ... federal law requires Chapman be returned to Atlanta to serve out his robbery sentence first ... a problem that is resolved by President Calvin Coolidge pardoning Chapman for all of his federal offenses so that he can be executed by the state of Connecticut.  Ouch!

Chapman At Center

President Calvin Coolidge

And ouch it will be ... literally ... the state of Connecticut does not drop hung prisoners to their deaths by way of a standard gallows, but instead employs a device called the "upright jerker" that at the flick of a large metal button, suddenly sends the blindfolded, standing person flying upward into the sky, their neck snapped with the instant motion and force (by way of 300 pounds of steel counterweights being dropped) ... at least that is what is suppose to happen if the executioner measures the victim's height and weight correctly, takes into account muscle tone, and places the rope at just the right spot on the neck.  In Chapman's case, after a last meal of pork chops, cottage fried potatoes, prunes, bread and butter, coffee, and milk, the killer gets his jerking without his neck being broken, and takes nine minutes to slowly strangle to death. Adios Chapman.
   
The Upright Jerker

But the deaths don't stop with Chapman's execution!  Extremely unhappy at his partner being executed, Anderson vows revenge ... and gets some.  District Attorney Alcorn is watched by armed guards 24 hours a day, while Shean is put in protective custody ... only farmer Ben Hance is left unprotected.  On August 15, 1925, Hance receives a telephone call ordering a couple of sacks of dried peas and beans, requesting delivery be made nearby, at a spot on the Middletown Pike.  Model T Ford loaded up with the vegetables and his wife, Hance realizes too late that the car waiting along the road is driven by a crook named Charlie "One Arm" Wolfe, and contains a well armed Anderson.  Chased, Hance tries for the nearest town but is eventually cut off and forced to stop ... at which time Anderson empties his revolver into Hance and his wife. 

Anderson

Revenge achieved, the killings only place an even bigger target on Anderson's back ... a target that will become holed on Halloween, 1925, in Muskegon, Michigan.  Buying small items with counterfeit money, and then pocketing the real money change, Anderson comes to the attention of local authorities when he uses the tactic repeatedly for over a week.  Seeking to stop the flow of funny money about the city, 45-year-old Detective Charles Dewitt Hammond stops Anderson after a local storekeeper states he has just received a bogus $20 bill from the man (from buying a box of candy at the Colonial Tea Room).  Knowing what will happen to him if he is arrested, Anderson first tries to bluff his way out of his predicament, but then runs when Hammond doesn't buy his lies. Unfortunately for both men, Anderson runs into a dead-end alley and with no other option remaining, pulls his handgun and opens up on the chasing Hammond.  Shot in the groin and bleeding badly, Hammond goes down, but does not give up the fight, grabbing Anderson when the killer tries to leave the alley ... and though mortally wounded, manages to shoot Anderson in the heart in the struggle that ensues (afterwards, he walks unassisted to the nearby police station, makes a report to Police Chief Hansen, turns in Anderson's weapon, and then collapses as he states, "He got me."). A veteran of 13 years with the police department, Hammond is survived by a wife and four children.

G-Men Trading Card

Hammond
   
The Alley

Tombstone

Over finally ... an over finally that begins with Gerald Chapman's last arrest on 1/18/1925.

Chapman