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.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.