Elizabeth Short in life, The Black Dahlia in death. What do people really understand about the woman before she became the poster girl for true crime curiousities? Most know her as the Black Dahlia, but few know Elizabeth Short was a young woman whose life was marked by tragedy long before her brutal 1947 murder made headlines across America.
In part one, we separate fact from fiction in the life of Elizabeth Short, who was born and raised in Medford, Massachusetts. Her tragic story has been sensationalized for decades, but few know about the real woman behind the gruesome headlines.
Born in Hyde Park, Boston in 1924, Elizabeth was the middle daughter of five girls. Her early years took a devastating turn when her father, Cleo Short, lost everything in the 1929 Wall Street Crash and abandoned his family, staging his own suicide by leaving his car on a bridge. For twelve years, Elizabeth's mother Phoebe believed she was a widow, struggling alone to raise five daughters during the Great Depression.
The family's world was upended again in 1942 when a letter arrived from the supposedly dead Cleo, revealing he was alive and living in California. Elizabeth, seeking connection with the father she thought dead, traveled west only to find disappointment. Their reunion lasted barely a month. Her life continued on a path of heartbreak when her boyfriend, decorated WWII pilot Major Matt Gordon, died in a plane crash just weeks before Japan's surrender in 1945.
Despite media portrayal of Elizabeth as a "party girl," records reveal just one minor brush with the law—an underage drinking incident. The nickname "Black Dahlia" wasn't media sensationalism but originated during her time in Long Beach, inspired by her striking appearance: dark hair, pale skin, and signature red lipstick.
The cruel irony of Elizabeth Short's story lies in how she's remembered only for her brutal end, while the resilient women in her family—her mother and sisters who lived well into their 90s—carried the burden of never knowing what happened to their beloved Elizabeth. By exploring her life before the headlines, we honor the real woman who existed beyond the infamous case that still captivates America's imagination.
This is part one. In the next episode, I examine Elizabeth Short's final days and the enduring mystery of how this young woman met this fate and who is responsible for her brutal end.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Anngelle Wood (00:00):
Well, hello, my name is Anngelle Wood and this
is Crime of the Truest Kind.
(00:26):
Hello, hello everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
Yes, my name is Anngelle Wood.
Yes, this is Crime of theTruest Kind and yes, it is
Massachusetts and New Englandcrime stories, regional history,
always advocacy focused.
We had an advocacy event lastweekend with the Massachusetts
State Police Unresolved CasesUnit and the Boston Police
(00:49):
Department's Cold Case Unit, andI met a lot of great people.
More events to come as part ofMMMPAC, the Massachusetts
Missing and Murdered PersonsAdvocacy Coalition.
I am going to AdvocacyCon at theend of March.
I will tell you all about it.
Thank you to our patrons.
(01:09):
Superstar Lisa McColgan, solidGold, holly Kate M, meryl,
michelle with one L.
Pam K V Brant and Wicked Cool,amy Brandy Courtney, georgia,
welcome Georgia.
Lolo, mark, rebecca.
I sent some Patreon messagesout.
(01:31):
I have been perfecting our livestreaming capabilities and I
sent the call out to Patreonmembers to say would you hang
for some live streams?
I will schedule one in earlyApril.
No joke, we'll do it.
Thank you for coming out to theStoneham Library event.
It was great to see you.
Special thanks to Lily and Annafrom Stoneham Public Library.
(01:54):
Next live show next Thursday,march 13th at Off Cabot in
Beverly Mass.
True Crime North Shore Preppingstories now Get tickets.
Crimeofthechewestkindcom.
At last week's library event Itold the story of Elizabeth
Shorts, a young woman fromMedford whose early life was
definitely not easy.
She only became known in death.
(02:17):
Hers is one of the most famouscases in all of crime history,
infamously unsolved.
She's like a character in thelore of true crime.
Her story has been told andretold and repackaged and
hijacked and told again in booksand movies and podcasts and
shows, while rooted in the realevents of Elizabeth's case.
(02:39):
The facts and fiction are oftenfused together.
The oldest unsolved case in LosAngeles history and possibly
all of California.
One of the oldest unsolvedcases in all of US history,
second only to the infamousVillisca axe murders in Villisca
, iowa.
(02:59):
Am I saying that right?
Villisca Iowa?
On the night of June 9th 1912,eight people, including six
children, were brutally murderedwith an axe.
Despite decades ofinvestigations, new detectives,
fresh eyes and several suspects,that case remains unsolved.
This is episode 80, facts fromfiction in the life of Elizabeth
(03:24):
Short, the Black Dahlia.
She's from Medford,massachusetts.
Hers is a notable unsolved casein the annals of true crime the
murder of Elizabeth Short in1947,.
Her body was found in anundeveloped field, mutilated,
(03:48):
severed, exsanguinated, posed,found in the Lemur Park area of
Los Angeles, california.
This case has captivated publicinterest for decades, but the
identity of her killer remains amystery.
Elizabeth Short in life, blackDahlia in death the brutality of
(04:12):
her end is what has kept hercase in the forefront of our
crime curiosities, known as theBlack Dahlia murder.
Her true existence is mostlyoverlooked.
A lot has been made of hermurder.
There's even a band, the BlackDahlia Murder, from Waterford
Michigan, melodic death metal.
(04:34):
That's a thing.
Little about her life is told,only how she died or how she was
found.
Because we don't know exactlyhow she died.
So many untruths have beenperpetuated over the decades,
repeated so much that the truthhas gotten lost.
She was a beautiful young woman, just 22 when she was killed.
(05:00):
Elizabeth, or Beth, was born onJuly 24, 1924 in Hyde Park, a
neighborhood of Boston.
The Short family had left Maineand moved to Massachusetts,
settling in Medford, a cityabout 6.7 miles from downtown
Boston, on the Mystic River inMiddlesex County.
(05:20):
According to the 2023 US Censusestimates are 58,744 residents
of Medford.
That's down from 2020.
I wonder if college enrollmentaffects that.
Tufts University straddles theMedford-Somerville line.
The famous Paul Revere MidnightRide routed through Medford
(05:44):
Square.
Now, thanks to this story, Inow know that the first
four-wheeled roller skate wasinvented in Medford and that
there's a National Museum ofRoller Skating in Lincoln,
nebraska.
You're welcome.
There are a lot of notablepeople listed as being from or
associated with Medford.
Highlights include actressJulia Nicholson of the many
(06:06):
credits she has racked up theHBO series, mayor of Easttown I
have watched well a number oftimes.
Alexis Ohanian, who foundedReddit in Medford At 72 Bristol
Road, I learned.
According to a post on wellReddit, he is also the husband
of the more famous SerenaWilliams Comic, robert Kelly
(06:28):
from Medford.
Grammy award-winning jazzdrummer, terry Lynn Carrington,
from Medford I believe she isthe youngest student to receive
a full scholarship to BerkleeCollege of Music, at the age of
11.
Bia, rapper and TV personality,and every year seems to show up
(06:48):
on the Boston Music Awardsnominee list and has taken a
couple of them home.
Also listed among people whohave spent time in Medford
Jessica Biel she attended Tufts.
Maria Menounos she worked forthe E News Network and I more
recently saw her doing some newsfeature or something for a gas
(07:09):
station video.
I remember one of her earliestacting jobs was a commercial for
the radio station that I usedto work at called WFNX.
Maybe you remember it.
Oh, and the Jingle Bellscomposer, james Lord Pierpoint.
That song was originally calledthe One Horse Open Sleigh
(07:31):
Simplicity folks.
Elizabeth's father, cleo ElvinShort Jr, was a Navy man from
Gloucester, virginia.
He met Phoebe Mae Sawyer.
She was raised in Millbridge,maine.
Her father had died young, atjust 38.
The family lived in Millbridgethat's past Bar Harbor, past
(07:52):
Camden and in the heart of wildblueberry country, and home to
Jasper Weinman and son.
They are reportedly the leadinggrower and distributor of
Maine's famous wild blueberries.
Maine blueberries can be likethe size of your fist and
Millbridge's population hasnever cracked 1,400 in any US
(08:14):
census.
It's small.
Cleo Short enlisted in themilitary in 1917, and then he
met Phoebe and they married onApril 11, 1918, in Portland,
maine.
The Shorts had five daughters,with Elizabeth landing smack dab
in the middle.
Older sister, virginia May, wasborn on November 23, 1920, in
(08:38):
Portland.
She married a man named AidanCharles West on February 26,
1945, in Los Angeles.
They lived in NorthernCalifornia.
It's unknown whether they hadchildren or how many, but
Virginia died on September 13,1985, at the age of 64.
Her husband, adrian West, diedonly two months later, on
(09:01):
November 28th 1985.
Second sister, dorothea, born in1922, in Massachusetts, she
went on to join the waves duringWorld War II and decoded
Japanese messages.
She married a man named NormanFrancis Frank Slosser, an Air
Force bomber pilot, in 1948.
(09:22):
They moved to the Kansas Cityarea where she would volunteer
at the VA hospital for more thana decade.
They had five children, ninegrandchildren and four
great-grandchildren.
Dorothea died on April 30, 2012.
Unclear of her actual birthday,she was 90, or soon to be 90.
(09:44):
Elizabeth was the next daughterborn to Cleo and Phoebe.
We will get to her story andthere is a lot about her life
available to tell.
Next among the short daughterswas Elnora to tell.
(10:04):
Next among the short daughterswas Elnora, or Nani, born
November 7th 1925 in Boston.
She married a man named DuncanArthur Chelmers from Melrose.
They lived in the area,eventually moving to Florida A
very New England thing to do.
I've seen the town Now fornothing.
It's a better movie than theDeparted Fight me.
Elnora died on January 9, 2022,in Vero Beach, florida.
(10:26):
She was 96 years old.
Their youngest sister was namedMuriel.
Her information was moredifficult to find, but with a
little digging into publicrecords I found her.
Muriel Arlene Short was born onOctober 23, 1928.
Her records say in Medford andme being me, I wasn't sure that
(10:50):
Medford had a hospital then.
So here's how my mind works Ihave to know Was there a
hospital in Medford in the 1920s?
The answer Medford's LawrenceMemorial Hospital, goes back to
1924.
That's always confused me whenI saw the highway sign, as there
is a Lawrence General Hospital.
(11:10):
In Lawrence there's also theWakefield Melrose.
That's close by Sidebar.
I worked at Melrose WakefieldHospital many years ago in the
nurse's department doingadministrative stuff and I
learned some very interestingthings about labor and delivery
and weighing things.
I also binged the entire 13seasons of Call the Midwife, so
(11:33):
it is possible that she was bornat home, all right.
Moving on, muriel was the fifthdaughter born to Cleo and Phoebe
Short.
She married a man named EarlMcNair.
They had three children Arlene,janice and Marsha many
grandchildren andgreat-grandchildren and, like
(11:53):
many of the women in her family,muriel McNair lived a very long
life.
Sadness visited the familyagain when her daughter Arlene
passed away in 2019.
There's that saying that nomother should outlive their kid.
That rings true.
Muriel died on June 29, 2023,at the age of 94.
(12:17):
Records show they lived inArlington and then Merrimack.
Her location of death is listedas Newburyport.
It's really very important torecognize the matriarch of this
entire family, phoebe Mae SawyerShort, who died on March 1st
1992 in Vero Beach, florida.
(12:38):
She was 94 years old.
The women of the Short familyfaced truly awful life events,
but they soldiered on, like manywomen had to do.
There were many descendants ofthe Short family tree who were
left to carry this generationaltrauma.
Why am I telling you about herfamily?
(12:58):
These people lived decades anddecades never knowing what
happened to their daughter andtheir sister.
Their story takes a sad turnmuch earlier than most realize
when their father, cleo, loseseverything in the Wall Street
(13:20):
crash of 1929.
He was believed to be a salesmanof what I'm not sure it was
pre-prohibition, whenenthusiasts looked for ways to
enjoy their golf game in smallerspaces.
You know we've all done alittle putt-putt right.
Enter the era of miniature golf.
The first dedicated course camein 1917, as the United States
(13:42):
was entering World War I.
It was a hit Mini -golf.
The war, not so much.
The mini-golf craze got theattention of Cleo short.
He made his way into thebusiness and opened a course
with the plan of expanding.
But it was not to be.
As the 1920s roared on, it wasthe loudest in the New York
(14:04):
Stock Exchange.
Share prices rose tounprecedented heights.
The Dow Jones IndustrialAverage soared to 63 in August
of 1921 and peaked at 381 inSeptember of 1929.
Economist Irving Fisherdeclared stock prices at a
permanently high plateau.
(14:25):
You know what happens whensomething plateaus the only way
to go is down.
It was Monday, october 28, 1929.
The Dow declined nearly 13%.
The next day, black Tuesday,the market dropped nearly 12%.
By mid-November the Dow hadlost almost half its value.
(14:45):
Those windfalls turned into ameltdown.
Wall Street crashed and burnedand Federal Reserve leaders
differed on how to respond towhat was happening.
The Great Depression came topost-World War I America and
changed the game, literally andfiguratively.
(15:05):
People could not afford tobuild quality courses, but the
interest in the game didn't wane.
People sourced availablematerial off the streets to
build courses and creativeobstacles were born.
It was more popular than ever.
It's estimated that over 4million people were playing
mini-golf in the United States.
(15:27):
But the future was not so rosyfor Cleo Short.
His burgeoning mini-golf parkbusiness went bust.
He lost everything in the crash, his personal Great Depression.
Rather than take his hits, facethe loss and his
responsibilities to his family,he looked for a way out.
He disappeared.
(15:48):
Cleo Short's car was foundabandoned on a bridge.
He is believed to have died byjumping off the Charlestown
Bridge into the Charles River,or the North End Bridge or the
North Washington Street Bridge,it depends on who you talk to.
But the decades-old dispute wasput to rest last year when it
(16:09):
was renamed for Bill Russell,the legendary Celtic player.
The William Felton-Bill RussellBridge was dedicated in October
2024.
Phoebe Short believed herhusband was dead.
What choice did she have?
Why else did he not return tohis family, though I would
(16:31):
suspect Phoebe knew something inhindsight anyway?
But Cleo Short left theirfamily on purpose and she would
learn something much darker inthe years ahead.
So, left with nothing and fiveyoung daughters to raise, she
went to work, taking a job as abookkeeper.
(16:53):
Time passed and Elizabeth grew.
She developed a respiratorycondition severe enough that she
had lung surgery at 15.
The New England cold was brutalon her, so Phoebe sent her to
Miami to stay with friendsduring the winter months.
Elizabeth would split her timebetween Medford and Miami,
(17:17):
eventually dropping out of highschool In December of 1942, a
bombshell arrived in the mail Aletter from a ghost, someone
claiming to be her dead husband,cleo Short.
He was alive and living inVallejo, california.
(17:38):
Why he decided to confess toher all those years later I do
not know.
Was it to offer his abandonedfamily an apology To clear his
conscience?
For 12 years Phoebe got bywithout him.
She raised her girls on her own.
Once she learned the truthabout what he had done, she
(17:59):
found that to be unforgivable.
He left in 1930, when he lostall of their money.
The hammer of the GreatDepression had fallen.
The impact felt no greater thanfor Phoebe as she struggled to
raise her children alone.
Elizabeth had to have seen thehardships her mother faced.
Yet that dream of knowing thefather she thought was dead,
(18:22):
that pull was strong.
I wonder why he even told them.
Why did he write to PhoebeShort?
He was a ghost from her pastthat she wanted to forget.
And despite it all, elizabethwent to California to be with
him.
It was a valiant effort on herpart, but it was not the magical
reunion she had hoped for.
(18:42):
He was not the kind and dotingfather she needed.
He did not make up for all thatlost time.
He was absent from their lives.
She left within about a monthof her arrival.
In Vallejo, he was more a bossthan a dad and she was not there
to be his servant.
Next up for her was a job in thepost exchange at Camp Cook, the
(19:06):
Air Force Base near Lompoc,california, where she was
declared Camp Cutie.
From there she went to SantaBarbara where, on September 23,
1943, elizabeth was arrested forunderage drinking at the El
Paseo restaurant.
Paseo restaurant.
Despite all the things made upfor a sexy story about a
(19:26):
murdered party girl, it was theone and only time Elizabeth had
gotten into trouble.
She was photographed,fingerprinted, and the jail
matron put her on a bus back toher mother in Massachusetts.
This turn of events would provemonumental.
In what came later, elizabethreturned to Florida, making only
(19:49):
occasional visits toMassachusetts.
Florida was much kinder to herchronic respiratory issues.
She was plagued by asthma andbronchitis.
It is there where she met MajorMatt Gordon, a decorated pilot
with the US Army Air Forces.
He had been injured in a crashand was on leave recovering when
they met.
He was born and raised inPueblo, colorado, and enlisted
(20:13):
at the age of 21.
He had flown with a groupnicknamed the Flying Tigers.
In the early years of World WarII.
The Flying Tigers were sent tohelp defeat the Japanese in
China and were famous for thedistinctive shark face painted
on the nose of their P-40fighters.
He was injured in a crash onFebruary 25, 1944, while
(20:35):
piloting an L-5B Sentinelreconnaissance plane.
It's what they call a flyingjeep.
While he searched for a downedpilot, his aircraft went down.
He did recover and return toactive duty.
There was a photo of themshowing the couple smiling,
looking very happy together.
(20:57):
Elizabeth had told friends thatMatt had proposed to her and she
accepted, excited about whatwas to come.
But that was not to be.
Another cruel hand of fate wasdealt to this young woman.
On August 10, 1945, majorGordon was killed while piloting
a P-51 Mustang near West Bengal, india, just a few weeks before
(21:20):
Japan's official surrender onSeptember 2, 1945.
He was just 26 years old andElizabeth, she was devastated by
his loss.
Elizabeth was clearlytraumatized.
The reunion with her father wasa complete disappointment.
(21:41):
Her boyfriend, maybe fiancé,was killed in a plane crash.
Her boyfriend, maybe fiancé,was killed in a plane crash.
She seemed lost.
She would make her way westagain in July 1946 to visit Army
Air Force Lieutenant JosephGordon Fickling, whom she knew
from Florida.
He was stationed in Long Beach.
Most accounts say the BlackDahlia nickname was the result
(22:04):
of media sensationalism.
I mean the competing LAnewspapers did workshop some
nicknames of their own in theheadlines.
But Black Dahlia came from hertime in Long Beach and the
people at a drugstore shefrequented while staying there.
Dark, dark hair, hail,porcelain skin, red lipstick.
(22:24):
Hair hail, porcelain skin, redlipstick.
She left Long Beach and landedin San Diego and bunked with her
friend Dorothy French.
While there she met travelingsalesman Robert Red Manley, the
married salesman, a fact he didkeep from her.
They would correspond for a fewmonths.
Her they would correspond for afew months.
(22:48):
She asked him for a ride to LosAngeles in early January 1947.
He agreed.
Red picked her up at Dorothy'son January 8th and they headed
for Los Angeles.
That would be the last time herfriend Dorothy would see
Elizabeth before she made thenightly news.
What comes next in Elizabeth'sstory has been told and retold
(23:08):
and repackaged and retold again.
In the next episode we willwalk through the last days of
Elizabeth Short's life beforeshe was found in that lot in
Lemur Park in Los Angeles,california.
Thank you for listening.
My name is Angelle Wood.
This is Crime of the TruestKind.
(23:29):
I talk about Massachusetts andNew England crime stories.
History, always advocacyfocused.
Elizabeth Short was fromMassachusetts.
Her story, her whole story,needs to be told.
Thank you for listening to theshow.
(23:50):
Thank you for supporting theshow.
Each and everything you dohelps Tell people about the show
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Share it in the groups that youpost in on Reddit and Facebook.
Share it on social media.
Post in on Reddit and Facebook.
Share it on social media.
Leave a five-star rating andreview on Apple Podcasts.
Give the dogs a bone.
(24:11):
Drop a tip in the jar.
You will help send me toAdvocacyCon in Indianapolis at
the end of the month.
Follow the show at Crime of theTruest Kind.
Become a patron on Patreon Fourtiers starting at just one
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Everything is linked atcrimeofthetruestkindcom.
(24:32):
If you have a case that youwant to tell me about, email at
crimeofthetruestkind at gmailcom.
Come to the show Thursday night, march 13th off Cabot M Beverly
.
True Crime North Shore A historyof murder, mystery and missing
persons.
I talk about crimes and I talkabout advocacy.
(24:52):
Cases planned, including thestory of Claire Gravel of
Beverly.
Michael O'Gorman of Gloucester,lois Centifanti of Lynn Jesus
de la Cruz, also of Lynn KarenSharp of Wenham.
Lisa Voy of Revere Henry BedardJr of Swampscott, leanne Redden
of Lynn Beryl Atherton, theunsolved case from Marblehead.
(25:17):
And I'm researching the ElliotChambers fire of Beverly.
I always save time at the endof every show for a Q&A, so
bring your questions or yourcomments or your stories.
They're always great and that'swhat's on the agenda.
This is episode number 80.
That feels amazing.
(25:37):
You can listen to all pastepisodes of Crime of the Truest
Kind wherever you get podcasts.
All right, I gotta jump Lockyour goddamn doors.
Well, hello, my name is Anngelle Wood and this
is Crime of the Truest Kind.
(00:26):
Hello, hello everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
Yes, my name is Anngelle Wood.
Yes, this is Crime of theTruest Kind and yes, it is
Massachusetts and New Englandcrime stories, regional history,
always advocacy focused.
We had an advocacy event lastweekend with the Massachusetts
State Police Unresolved CasesUnit and the Boston Police
(00:49):
Department's Cold Case Unit, andI met a lot of great people.
More events to come as part ofMMMPAC, the Massachusetts
Missing and Murdered PersonsAdvocacy Coalition.
I am going to AdvocacyCon at theend of March.
I will tell you all about it.
Thank you to our patrons.
(01:09):
Superstar Lisa McColgan, solidGold, holly Kate M, meryl,
michelle with one L.
Pam K V Brant and Wicked Cool,amy Brandy Courtney, georgia,
welcome Georgia.
Lolo, mark, rebecca.
I sent some Patreon messagesout.
(01:31):
I have been perfecting our livestreaming capabilities and I
sent the call out to Patreonmembers to say would you hang
for some live streams?
I will schedule one in earlyApril.
No joke, we'll do it.
Thank you for coming out to theStoneham Library event.
It was great to see you.
Special thanks to Lily and Annafrom Stoneham Public Library.
(01:54):
Next live show next Thursday,march 13th at Off Cabot in
Beverly Mass.
True Crime North Shore Preppingstories now Get tickets.
Crimeofthechewestkindcom.
At last week's library event Itold the story of Elizabeth
Shorts, a young woman fromMedford whose early life was
definitely not easy.
She only became known in death.
(02:17):
Hers is one of the most famouscases in all of crime history,
infamously unsolved.
She's like a character in thelore of true crime.
Her story has been told andretold and repackaged and
hijacked and told again in booksand movies and podcasts and
shows, while rooted in the realevents of Elizabeth's case.
(02:39):
The facts and fiction are oftenfused together.
The oldest unsolved case in LosAngeles history and possibly
all of California.
One of the oldest unsolvedcases in all of US history,
second only to the infamousVillisca axe murders in Villisca
, iowa.
(02:59):
Am I saying that right?
Villisca Iowa?
On the night of June 9th 1912,eight people, including six
children, were brutally murderedwith an axe.
Despite decades ofinvestigations, new detectives,
fresh eyes and several suspects,that case remains unsolved.
This is episode 80, facts fromfiction in the life of Elizabeth
(03:24):
Short, the Black Dahlia.
She's from Medford,massachusetts.
Hers is a notable unsolved casein the annals of true crime the
murder of Elizabeth Short in1947,.
Her body was found in anundeveloped field, mutilated,
(03:48):
severed, exsanguinated, posed,found in the Lemur Park area of
Los Angeles, california.
This case has captivated publicinterest for decades, but the
identity of her killer remains amystery.
Elizabeth Short in life, blackDahlia in death the brutality of
(04:12):
her end is what has kept hercase in the forefront of our
crime curiosities, known as theBlack Dahlia murder.
Her true existence is mostlyoverlooked.
A lot has been made of hermurder.
There's even a band, the BlackDahlia Murder, from Waterford
Michigan, melodic death metal.
(04:34):
That's a thing.
Little about her life is told,only how she died or how she was
found.
Because we don't know exactlyhow she died.
So many untruths have beenperpetuated over the decades,
repeated so much that the truthhas gotten lost.
She was a beautiful young woman, just 22 when she was killed.
(05:00):
Elizabeth, or Beth, was born onJuly 24, 1924 in Hyde Park, a
neighborhood of Boston.
The Short family had left Maineand moved to Massachusetts,
settling in Medford, a cityabout 6.7 miles from downtown
Boston, on the Mystic River inMiddlesex County.
(05:20):
According to the 2023 US Censusestimates are 58,744 residents
of Medford.
That's down from 2020.
I wonder if college enrollmentaffects that.
Tufts University straddles theMedford-Somerville line.
The famous Paul Revere MidnightRide routed through Medford
(05:44):
Square.
Now, thanks to this story, Inow know that the first
four-wheeled roller skate wasinvented in Medford and that
there's a National Museum ofRoller Skating in Lincoln,
nebraska.
You're welcome.
There are a lot of notablepeople listed as being from or
associated with Medford.
Highlights include actressJulia Nicholson of the many
(06:06):
credits she has racked up theHBO series, mayor of Easttown I
have watched well a number oftimes.
Alexis Ohanian, who foundedReddit in Medford At 72 Bristol
Road, I learned.
According to a post on wellReddit, he is also the husband
of the more famous SerenaWilliams Comic, robert Kelly
(06:28):
from Medford.
Grammy award-winning jazzdrummer, terry Lynn Carrington,
from Medford I believe she isthe youngest student to receive
a full scholarship to BerkleeCollege of Music, at the age of
11.
Bia, rapper and TV personality,and every year seems to show up
(06:48):
on the Boston Music Awardsnominee list and has taken a
couple of them home.
Also listed among people whohave spent time in Medford
Jessica Biel she attended Tufts.
Maria Menounos she worked forthe E News Network and I more
recently saw her doing some newsfeature or something for a gas
(07:09):
station video.
I remember one of her earliestacting jobs was a commercial for
the radio station that I usedto work at called WFNX.
Maybe you remember it.
Oh, and the Jingle Bellscomposer, james Lord Pierpoint.
That song was originally calledthe One Horse Open Sleigh
(07:31):
Simplicity folks.
Elizabeth's father, cleo ElvinShort Jr, was a Navy man from
Gloucester, virginia.
He met Phoebe Mae Sawyer.
She was raised in Millbridge,maine.
Her father had died young, atjust 38.
The family lived in Millbridgethat's past Bar Harbor, past
(07:52):
Camden and in the heart of wildblueberry country, and home to
Jasper Weinman and son.
They are reportedly the leadinggrower and distributor of
Maine's famous wild blueberries.
Maine blueberries can be likethe size of your fist and
Millbridge's population hasnever cracked 1,400 in any US
(08:14):
census.
It's small.
Cleo Short enlisted in themilitary in 1917, and then he
met Phoebe and they married onApril 11, 1918, in Portland,
maine.
The Shorts had five daughters,with Elizabeth landing smack dab
in the middle.
Older sister, virginia May, wasborn on November 23, 1920, in
(08:38):
Portland.
She married a man named AidanCharles West on February 26,
1945, in Los Angeles.
They lived in NorthernCalifornia.
It's unknown whether they hadchildren or how many, but
Virginia died on September 13,1985, at the age of 64.
Her husband, adrian West, diedonly two months later, on
(09:01):
November 28th 1985.
Second sister, dorothea, born in1922, in Massachusetts, she
went on to join the waves duringWorld War II and decoded
Japanese messages.
She married a man named NormanFrancis Frank Slosser, an Air
Force bomber pilot, in 1948.
(09:22):
They moved to the Kansas Cityarea where she would volunteer
at the VA hospital for more thana decade.
They had five children, ninegrandchildren and four
great-grandchildren.
Dorothea died on April 30, 2012.
Unclear of her actual birthday,she was 90, or soon to be 90.
(09:44):
Elizabeth was the next daughterborn to Cleo and Phoebe.
We will get to her story andthere is a lot about her life
available to tell.
Next among the short daughterswas Elnora to tell.
(10:04):
Next among the short daughterswas Elnora, or Nani, born
November 7th 1925 in Boston.
She married a man named DuncanArthur Chelmers from Melrose.
They lived in the area,eventually moving to Florida A
very New England thing to do.
I've seen the town Now fornothing.
It's a better movie than theDeparted Fight me.
Elnora died on January 9, 2022,in Vero Beach, florida.
(10:26):
She was 96 years old.
Their youngest sister was namedMuriel.
Her information was moredifficult to find, but with a
little digging into publicrecords I found her.
Muriel Arlene Short was born onOctober 23, 1928.
Her records say in Medford andme being me, I wasn't sure that
(10:50):
Medford had a hospital then.
So here's how my mind works Ihave to know Was there a
hospital in Medford in the 1920s?
The answer Medford's LawrenceMemorial Hospital, goes back to
1924.
That's always confused me whenI saw the highway sign, as there
is a Lawrence General Hospital.
(11:10):
In Lawrence there's also theWakefield Melrose.
That's close by Sidebar.
I worked at Melrose WakefieldHospital many years ago in the
nurse's department doingadministrative stuff and I
learned some very interestingthings about labor and delivery
and weighing things.
I also binged the entire 13seasons of Call the Midwife, so
(11:33):
it is possible that she was bornat home, all right.
Moving on, muriel was the fifthdaughter born to Cleo and Phoebe
Short.
She married a man named EarlMcNair.
They had three children Arlene,janice and Marsha many
grandchildren andgreat-grandchildren and, like
(11:53):
many of the women in her family,muriel McNair lived a very long
life.
Sadness visited the familyagain when her daughter Arlene
passed away in 2019.
There's that saying that nomother should outlive their kid.
That rings true.
Muriel died on June 29, 2023,at the age of 94.
(12:17):
Records show they lived inArlington and then Merrimack.
Her location of death is listedas Newburyport.
It's really very important torecognize the matriarch of this
entire family, phoebe Mae SawyerShort, who died on March 1st
1992 in Vero Beach, florida.
(12:38):
She was 94 years old.
The women of the Short familyfaced truly awful life events,
but they soldiered on, like manywomen had to do.
There were many descendants ofthe Short family tree who were
left to carry this generationaltrauma.
Why am I telling you about herfamily?
(12:58):
These people lived decades anddecades never knowing what
happened to their daughter andtheir sister.
Their story takes a sad turnmuch earlier than most realize
when their father, cleo, loseseverything in the Wall Street
(13:20):
crash of 1929.
He was believed to be a salesmanof what I'm not sure it was
pre-prohibition, whenenthusiasts looked for ways to
enjoy their golf game in smallerspaces.
You know we've all done alittle putt-putt right.
Enter the era of miniature golf.
The first dedicated course camein 1917, as the United States
(13:42):
was entering World War I.
It was a hit Mini -golf.
The war, not so much.
The mini-golf craze got theattention of Cleo short.
He made his way into thebusiness and opened a course
with the plan of expanding.
But it was not to be.
As the 1920s roared on, it wasthe loudest in the New York
(14:04):
Stock Exchange.
Share prices rose tounprecedented heights.
The Dow Jones IndustrialAverage soared to 63 in August
of 1921 and peaked at 381 inSeptember of 1929.
Economist Irving Fisherdeclared stock prices at a
permanently high plateau.
(14:25):
You know what happens whensomething plateaus the only way
to go is down.
It was Monday, october 28, 1929.
The Dow declined nearly 13%.
The next day, black Tuesday,the market dropped nearly 12%.
By mid-November the Dow hadlost almost half its value.
(14:45):
Those windfalls turned into ameltdown.
Wall Street crashed and burnedand Federal Reserve leaders
differed on how to respond towhat was happening.
The Great Depression came topost-World War I America and
changed the game, literally andfiguratively.
(15:05):
People could not afford tobuild quality courses, but the
interest in the game didn't wane.
People sourced availablematerial off the streets to
build courses and creativeobstacles were born.
It was more popular than ever.
It's estimated that over 4million people were playing
mini-golf in the United States.
(15:27):
But the future was not so rosyfor Cleo Short.
His burgeoning mini-golf parkbusiness went bust.
He lost everything in the crash, his personal Great Depression.
Rather than take his hits, facethe loss and his
responsibilities to his family,he looked for a way out.
He disappeared.
(15:48):
Cleo Short's car was foundabandoned on a bridge.
He is believed to have died byjumping off the Charlestown
Bridge into the Charles River,or the North End Bridge or the
North Washington Street Bridge,it depends on who you talk to.
But the decades-old dispute wasput to rest last year when it
(16:09):
was renamed for Bill Russell,the legendary Celtic player.
The William Felton-Bill RussellBridge was dedicated in October
2024.
Phoebe Short believed herhusband was dead.
What choice did she have?
Why else did he not return tohis family, though I would
(16:31):
suspect Phoebe knew something inhindsight anyway?
But Cleo Short left theirfamily on purpose and she would
learn something much darker inthe years ahead.
So, left with nothing and fiveyoung daughters to raise, she
went to work, taking a job as abookkeeper.
(16:53):
Time passed and Elizabeth grew.
She developed a respiratorycondition severe enough that she
had lung surgery at 15.
The New England cold was brutalon her, so Phoebe sent her to
Miami to stay with friendsduring the winter months.
Elizabeth would split her timebetween Medford and Miami,
(17:17):
eventually dropping out of highschool In December of 1942, a
bombshell arrived in the mail Aletter from a ghost, someone
claiming to be her dead husband,cleo Short.
He was alive and living inVallejo, california.
(17:38):
Why he decided to confess toher all those years later I do
not know.
Was it to offer his abandonedfamily an apology To clear his
conscience?
For 12 years Phoebe got bywithout him.
She raised her girls on her own.
Once she learned the truthabout what he had done, she
(17:59):
found that to be unforgivable.
He left in 1930, when he lostall of their money.
The hammer of the GreatDepression had fallen.
The impact felt no greater thanfor Phoebe as she struggled to
raise her children alone.
Elizabeth had to have seen thehardships her mother faced.
Yet that dream of knowing thefather she thought was dead,
(18:22):
that pull was strong.
I wonder why he even told them.
Why did he write to PhoebeShort?
He was a ghost from her pastthat she wanted to forget.
And despite it all, elizabethwent to California to be with
him.
It was a valiant effort on herpart, but it was not the magical
reunion she had hoped for.
(18:42):
He was not the kind and dotingfather she needed.
He did not make up for all thatlost time.
He was absent from their lives.
She left within about a monthof her arrival.
In Vallejo, he was more a bossthan a dad and she was not there
to be his servant.
Next up for her was a job in thepost exchange at Camp Cook, the
(19:06):
Air Force Base near Lompoc,california, where she was
declared Camp Cutie.
From there she went to SantaBarbara where, on September 23,
1943, elizabeth was arrested forunderage drinking at the El
Paseo restaurant.
Paseo restaurant.
Despite all the things made upfor a sexy story about a
(19:26):
murdered party girl, it was theone and only time Elizabeth had
gotten into trouble.
She was photographed,fingerprinted, and the jail
matron put her on a bus back toher mother in Massachusetts.
This turn of events would provemonumental.
In what came later, elizabethreturned to Florida, making only
(19:49):
occasional visits toMassachusetts.
Florida was much kinder to herchronic respiratory issues.
She was plagued by asthma andbronchitis.
It is there where she met MajorMatt Gordon, a decorated pilot
with the US Army Air Forces.
He had been injured in a crashand was on leave recovering when
they met.
He was born and raised inPueblo, colorado, and enlisted
(20:13):
at the age of 21.
He had flown with a groupnicknamed the Flying Tigers.
In the early years of World WarII.
The Flying Tigers were sent tohelp defeat the Japanese in
China and were famous for thedistinctive shark face painted
on the nose of their P-40fighters.
He was injured in a crash onFebruary 25, 1944, while
(20:35):
piloting an L-5B Sentinelreconnaissance plane.
It's what they call a flyingjeep.
While he searched for a downedpilot, his aircraft went down.
He did recover and return toactive duty.
There was a photo of themshowing the couple smiling,
looking very happy together.
(20:57):
Elizabeth had told friends thatMatt had proposed to her and she
accepted, excited about whatwas to come.
But that was not to be.
Another cruel hand of fate wasdealt to this young woman.
On August 10, 1945, majorGordon was killed while piloting
a P-51 Mustang near West Bengal, india, just a few weeks before
(21:20):
Japan's official surrender onSeptember 2, 1945.
He was just 26 years old andElizabeth, she was devastated by
his loss.
Elizabeth was clearlytraumatized.
The reunion with her father wasa complete disappointment.
(21:41):
Her boyfriend, maybe fiancé,was killed in a plane crash.
Her boyfriend, maybe fiancé,was killed in a plane crash.
She seemed lost.
She would make her way westagain in July 1946 to visit Army
Air Force Lieutenant JosephGordon Fickling, whom she knew
from Florida.
He was stationed in Long Beach.
Most accounts say the BlackDahlia nickname was the result
(22:04):
of media sensationalism.
I mean the competing LAnewspapers did workshop some
nicknames of their own in theheadlines.
But Black Dahlia came from hertime in Long Beach and the
people at a drugstore shefrequented while staying there.
Dark, dark hair, hail,porcelain skin, red lipstick.
(22:24):
Hair hail, porcelain skin, redlipstick.
She left Long Beach and landedin San Diego and bunked with her
friend Dorothy French.
While there she met travelingsalesman Robert Red Manley, the
married salesman, a fact he didkeep from her.
They would correspond for a fewmonths.
Her they would correspond for afew months.
(22:48):
She asked him for a ride to LosAngeles in early January 1947.
He agreed.
Red picked her up at Dorothy'son January 8th and they headed
for Los Angeles.
That would be the last time herfriend Dorothy would see
Elizabeth before she made thenightly news.
What comes next in Elizabeth'sstory has been told and retold
(23:08):
and repackaged and retold again.
In the next episode we willwalk through the last days of
Elizabeth Short's life beforeshe was found in that lot in
Lemur Park in Los Angeles,california.
Thank you for listening.
My name is Angelle Wood.
This is Crime of the TruestKind.
(23:29):
I talk about Massachusetts andNew England crime stories.
History, always advocacyfocused.
Elizabeth Short was fromMassachusetts.
Her story, her whole story,needs to be told.
Thank you for listening to theshow.
(23:50):
Thank you for supporting theshow.
Each and everything you dohelps Tell people about the show
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Share it in the groups that youpost in on Reddit and Facebook.
Share it on social media.
Post in on Reddit and Facebook.
Share it on social media.
Leave a five-star rating andreview on Apple Podcasts.
Give the dogs a bone.
(24:11):
Drop a tip in the jar.
You will help send me toAdvocacyCon in Indianapolis at
the end of the month.
Follow the show at Crime of theTruest Kind.
Become a patron on Patreon Fourtiers starting at just one
dollar on Patreon.
Everything is linked atcrimeofthetruestkindcom.
(24:32):
If you have a case that youwant to tell me about, email at
crimeofthetruestkind at gmailcom.
Come to the show Thursday night, march 13th off Cabot M Beverly
.
True Crime North Shore A historyof murder, mystery and missing
persons.
I talk about crimes and I talkabout advocacy.
(24:52):
Cases planned, including thestory of Claire Gravel of
Beverly.
Michael O'Gorman of Gloucester,lois Centifanti of Lynn Jesus
de la Cruz, also of Lynn KarenSharp of Wenham.
Lisa Voy of Revere Henry BedardJr of Swampscott, leanne Redden
of Lynn Beryl Atherton, theunsolved case from Marblehead.
(25:17):
And I'm researching the ElliotChambers fire of Beverly.
I always save time at the endof every show for a Q&A, so
bring your questions or yourcomments or your stories.
They're always great and that'swhat's on the agenda.
This is episode number 80.
That feels amazing.
(25:37):
You can listen to all pastepisodes of Crime of the Truest
Kind wherever you get podcasts.
All right, I gotta jump Lockyour goddamn doors.
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