"Black Dahlia": murder of Eliabeth Short

It still as an unsolved murder. 

The body of Elizabeth was found on the morning of January 15, 1947. 

Her nude body was found in two pieces on a vacant lot, on the west side of South Norton Avenue  midway between Coliseum Street and West 39th street, in Los Angeles.

Her body was mutilated at the waist and drained entirely of blood. Is was obviously washed by the killer, the face had been slashed from the corners of her mouth to her ears, creating an effect called the Glasgow smile. 

According to newspaper reports shortly after murder, Elizabeth Short recieved the nickname "Black Dahlia" at a Long beach, California drugstore in mid 1946 as wordplay on the fim "The Blue Dahlia". Los Angeles County district attorney investigators' reports state that the nickname was invented by newspaper reporters covering the murder. Los Angeles Herald-Express reporter Bevo Means, who interviewed Short's acquaintances at the drug store, is credited with first using "Black Dahlia" name.

A popular portrayal amongst her acquaintances and many true-crime authors was on Short as a call-girl, or prostitute, The Los Angeles district attorney's grand jury proved there was no existing evidence that she was ever a prostitute, and the district attorney's office attributes the claim to confusion with another woman with the same name. 

About 60 people confessed to the murder, mostly men. Of those, 25 were considered viable suspects by the Los Angeles District Attorney. Some of the original 25 were eliminated, and several new suspects were proposed. 

Some authors proposed a theory of relation of this murder with the Cleveland Torso murders, which took place in Cleveland between 1934 and 1938. Nevertheless, new evidence implicating a former Cleveland torso murder suspect, Jack Anderson Wilson (a.k.a. Arnold Smith), was investigated by Detective Jihn P. St. John in 1980 in connection with Short's death. St. John claimed he was close to arresting Wilson for the murder of Short, but Wilson died in a fire on February 4, 1982.

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You can see a mention of Black Dahlia in AHS: the murder house, she was a patient of the psychologist.  :)