Early one morning, a young boy and his dog stumbled upon the body of a woman lying on a golf course. Her name was Ora Murray, and she’d been strangled and mutilated – a white gardenia corsage still pinned to her tattered dress. In Los Angeles to visit family, Ora had gone out dancing one night at the Zenda Ballroom with her sister Latona. There they met a good-looking, friendly man, who offered to take the sisters on a tour of Hollywood in his car. Latona went home to her husband. Ora drove away with the man into the night. It was the last time she was seen alive.

Two women are found mutilated and murdered in downtown Los Angeles. One woman’s body was lying in the doorway of the closet at the Barclay Hotel. Her leg had been hacked off at the knee; her ankle and foot tossed aside. A few hours later the second woman’s body was discovered at the Joyce Hotel. Her left breast had been severed and she had been sliced open from throat to abdomen. An APB went out for a tall thin man, whom the press would dub the Vampire Slayer – for good reason.

January 15, 1947: The body of a young woman was found in a vacant lot south of Hollywood. Mutilated, completely sliced in two at the waist and drained of blood, her face was slashed into the infamous “Glasgow smile.” The head of Los Angeles’ Homicide Squad called her murder one of the most brutal killings in the city’s history. It took a search of FBI fingerprint files to identify her. She was Elizabeth Short, a star-struck twenty-two-year old from Massachusetts. Although not famous in real life, in death she became the most famous cold case of all time.

Homicide detectives and reporters retraced Elizabeth Short’s steps prior to her body being discovered in Los Angeles on January 15th. Her mother, back in Massachusetts, told investigators that “Betty” had been living in San Diego. She was also traced to Long Beach, where regulars at a drugstore called her the Black Dahlia, because of the way she dressed and wore her hair. The Black Dahlia nickname captured the public’s attention and stuck. Betty was last seen on January 8th leaving San Diego with a man named Red. But where was Red now? And was he the killer?

Police investigators closed in on Suspect #1 in the sadistic murder of Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia. The man they sought was Robert “Red” Manley – identified when he used his real name to check into a Pacific Coast Highway motel with Short on January 8th. That was just the first of many mistakes Red made, including lying to his wife. After his arrest, Red was questioned and given two lie detector tests. But was he guilty of more than cheating on Harriette? Police tried to piece together the Black Dahlia’s missing week, January 9th thru the 15th. Was she drugged and held in some secret place – a warehouse, an abandoned building? A torture chamber?