This is an LA Times Studios podcast.

At a drugstore in Long Beach, a jobless young woman named Elizabeth Short used to be seen frequently lingering at the counter.

Her hair was dyed jet black, matching the funereal hue of the clothes she favored.

It was here that she acquired a playful nickname that would fuel her long, macabre afterlife.

People called her The Black Dahlia.

It was a riff on a Raymond Chandler movie, a film noir called The Blue Dahlia that was popular at the time.

Cops and reporters discovered Elizabeth Short's nickname after her mutilated body was found on January 15,

1947, in a weedy lot in South Los Angeles. The black dahlia made her sound like some kind of rare, poisonous bloom, a night creature on

intimate terms with death.

There is no proof she even knew of the name.

It derived from noir fantasy and helped transform her into noir fantasy.

Writers would tailor her story to fit a femme-fatal archetype.

She was often described as an aspiring actress.

Her death played as a cautionary tale.

Parents might tell daughters who dreamed of taking a bus to Hollywood to find stardom.

The myths continue to swirl around Elizabeth Short.

Her death at age 22 has spawned endless Byzantine theories.

What fuels the enduring fascination?

Like Jack the Ripper, there's an evocative moniker, there's an undercurrent of sex,

there is a degree of real savagery, and there is a lack of

resolution. From L.A. Times Studios, this is Crimes of the Times. I'm Christopher Gofford.

People know Elizabeth Short's face now from a few surviving images.

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