SEVERED: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder - by John Gilmore

SEVERED: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder

By John Gilmore

The grisly 1947 murder of aspiring starlet and nightclub habitué Elizabeth Short, known even before her death as the “Black Dahlia,” has over the decades transmogrified from L.A.'s crime of the century to an almost mythical symbol of Hollywood Babylon/film noir glamour-cum-sordidness.

SEVERED, a true-crime book published on the strangest of all “unsolved” murders in the annals of modern crime, offers the documented solution to the case as endorsed by law enforcement and forensic science experts. It is appropriate that hard-boiled, Hollywood-born author John Gilmore, whose father was an LAPD officer at the time of the murder, should be the one to unravel the multilayered mystery of this archetypal Los Angeles slaying, having begun his painstaking investigations into the case over thirty-five years ago.

Gilmore tells several previously unrevealed stories at once, each filled with its own bizarre elements through which SEVERED transcends the true crime genre. One is the tale of victim Elizabeth Short, small-town beauty queen with big hopes, who seemed to float through her tragically futile life as an alluring yet doom-laden enigma. Another is the tangled inside story of the police investigation and the remorseless, Hearststoked press hoopla that paralled it. Finally Gilmore reveals the twisted psychology and down-and-out life story of the actual murderer— as well as the startling circumstances and gruesome details of the killer's indirect confessions to him. SEVERED contains a thirty-two-page photo section with many never before-published photos from the life of Elizabeth Short and from the case, including graphic crime scene and postmortem police photos.

"The most satisfying and disturbing conclusion to the Black Dahlia case... " -- David Lynch

"My god this is a frightening tale...." -- Kenneth Anger

AMOK BOOKS - 230 Page Paperback - Illustrated b&w - Price: $15.00

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BLACK DAHLIA CRIME SCENE: