The Riddle of the Black Dahlia

When last we visited L.A. we were on the eastern leg of the ripper's cross having visited Exposition Park, with it's Eden of fragrant local flowers, including, no doubt many living dahlia's, still on their own stems, as it were , instead of lying amongst the clippings in the wasting ground north of Leimert Park. And then e visited an older and even grittier, but no less historical section at Clement Junction. The clues we have gathered so far point to the existence of a geographical riddle for the city to ponder, as concocted in the mind of a psychotic killer, which, once in place would govern his movements as if it were a radio beacon, droning police calls form the transmitter at Silver Lake , that gave the creepy Southern California night it's real horrors.

Looking toward geographic north from 3825 Norton, the killer has given us two points of reference, LA Memorial Park on Olympic and Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Park at 6200 Forest Lawn Dr. which form a perfect north-south line. Looking south we find that the line segment continues southward delineating Hollywood Park and Hawthorn Municipal Airport as points of interest to the killer, and to anyone willing to follow his line of unreasoning once more, this time to the true west. Describing the western and final leg of the chase leads us to the Santa Monica Municipal Airport at 120' west of possibly the most geographically anomalous vacant lot in the entire world, but a location which establishes beyond doubt her final bearings at Latitude:34.015/Longitude:-118.333.

But something is definitely missing from the left side of the puzzle. The area halfway between 3825 Norton and the Santa Monica Airport is lacking any discernable landmarks at all, just a nondescript section of Culver City, part the MGM back lot in the old days, up by L.A. City College, the river, and climbing up the western slope of the Baldwin Hills. Nothing, where there ought to be a clue is a clue in itself. How could the LAPD have missed it?

Here then is the list of landmarks which can be deduced from this set of GPS data:

1. Exposition Park. (1' west) of BD. Back when it was known as Agricultural Park, it was L.A.'s first horse racing venue. Also an important site in the City's horticultural history (see Rose Garden). The site borders the USC campus to the south and contains among other attractions the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as well as it's Museum of Natural history.

2. Clement Junction (2' west). Named for the great railroad surveyor, Louis Meltzer Clement, Clement Junction is one of the key geographical and historical points of entry and egress into the city. And base lined further southern and western expansion along the line of 39th. Street. Also the location of the trash dump where the Dahlia's purse and shoes were found and later nosed by Red Manley by the taps he'd put on her shoes in December in San Diego.

3. Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Park (2' north). An huge commerical cemetery. An L.A address not to be confused with the later, even larger Forest Lawn cemetary in up in Glendale.

4. L.A. Memorial Park (1' north) Another, smaller municipal cemetery. It's now know as L.A. High Memorial Park, no longer an active cemetery, it's one of the most popular shooting sites for movies, TV, and commercials in the West L.A. area.

5. 3825 Norton Av.: The not vacant lot. The location of Black Dahlia's The Double Dahlia blossom cut in two, exposed, and carefully posed, looking east, homeward. Our Ground Zero in the Elizabeth Short murder.

6. Hollywood Park, Inglewood. (1' south) Another later, and much larger horse racing track, one which opened in 1938 Built along the same line as the two cemeteries and continuing roughly along the line of the mighty Crenshaw Blvd as it makes it's way down to Lomita and Harbor City.

7. Hawthorne Municipal Airport ( 2' south).

8. The null set. (1' west.).

9. Santa Monica Municipal Airport (2' west).

Eureka! Eight solid hits and one empty result. The murderer vampire has made his final mistake, he has provided me with the absolute algorithm of his crime as he it played out in his boiling brain fluid and across his precious maps of the city which he, the killer knew even better than the cops, and this guy knew lots more than the cops. Like how to navigate L.A. using only map co-ordinates is a neat trick, as anyone who's tried it will likely tell you.

Now, after marking up all eight points of interest, you see you have a map showing the direct correlations between a list containing two cemeteries, two horse tracks, and two municipal airports, both outside LA proper. A long forgotten rail junction, and a very enigmatic empty space halfway between the body and The Santa Monica airstrip. Using just the clues, and making an educated guess, you can describe a line segment starting at #5 and running southwest through #9 and coming to rest in a new place altogether, the foot of Breeze Ave. in Venice. The exact location of the clothing and suicide note found exactly two month later on March 15, 1947. Location #10.

Not convinced? Now try to draw another straight line, this one begin at location #10 in Venice and run it east northeast back across town again marking location #5 and continuing until you hit the bulls eye at location #11. 300 E. Washington Blvd. The Hirsh Apartments where the managers had positively identified the couple in the Long Beach photo strip as "Barnes and wife" Hirsh regulars who's last stay there together began with their last sighting of the Dahlia checking in the morning of Sunday, January 12 and Barnes who was "waiting for his wife", but didn't wait around on on the 15th of January, 1947, about 10:30 in the morning.

It's the almost incalculable changes of perspective forced upon the surveyor by the many changes in elevation that make the LA area so difficult to know intimately. Add that to the continuing confusion brought upon by the smaller towns that function as independent jurisdictions with-in the larger context of the city and the County of Los Angeles. "...Seventy-two suburbs in search of a City", according to Dorothy Parker, Herself a New Yorker like our suspect numero uno, Edwin Francis Burns, who knew it all too well, and left the clues for me to solve some sixty years later.