Some chippie got murdered and carved up in the process.  What is new here?  Am I missing something?

A mystery that matters and as sick and abhorrent a crime as any perpetrated by Jack the Ripper, by the Turks against Armenians in 1915, during the Holocaust, in Kosovo or Rwanda a decade ago or (fill in the blank).

I'll give this only two stars because its just one of thousands of grisly, unexplained murders that have occured in the last 100 years or so.

Pretty clearly the victim of a serial killer (there were other crimes in a five year window that bear similarities to her murder), Short was a wannabee actress and part time hooker and an ideal victim for that sort of killer.

A sidebar here is that one of the other possible victims was the mother of noir novelist James Ellroy (author of L.A. Confidential)

There are far more interesting murder mysteries that haven't had the airplay this one has, for example, the Cleveland Torso Killer in the 30's (which involved Elliot Ness), the Janet Smith murder in Vancouver in the 1920's, the assassination of Swedish PM Olaf Palme, the murder of actress Thelma Todd in the 30's, the murder of alleged Kennedy mistress Mary Meyer in 1964, the Hall-Mills murder in New Jersey in the 20's, the framing of William Coffin for a triple murder in Quebec in the 60's, and the Marilyn Sheppard murder in the '50s.

A writer named Steve Hodel, who used to work in law enforcement, has written Black Dahlia Avenger, in which he claims his father was the murderer. He gives no solid evidence, but says he came to realize the truth over the years after doing some of his own investigating. The book makes for very interesting reading, but it leaves you less than satisfied at the end.

One of the 20th century's most grisly unsolved mysteries. Elizabeth Short was a beautiful young woman who was butchered in the Los Angeles of 1947. Books have been written in the years since suggesting the possible identity of her killer, but nothing has been conclusively proven.