Can Fingerprints from 1943 Solve the Black Dahlia Murder?

On January 15, 1947, a woman was walking in Los Angeles’ Leimert Park neighborhood when she stumbled upon a discarded mannequin in a vacant lot. As she drew closer, however, she realized it wasn’t a mannequin at all, but rather the body of a dead woman who’d been mutilated.

The discovery launched one of the largest homicide investigations in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department. However, the murder of Elizabeth Short, who became known as the “Black Dahlia,” has remained unsolved ever since. 

Now, nearly 80 years later, police are investigating newly uncovered evidence that could shed light on the gruesome crime. Marty Mojarro, a cold case investigator for the LAPD, told Fox News Digital he’s looking into a 1943 fingerprint card that purportedly bears the prints of Marvin Margolis, Short’s ex-boyfriend and an early suspect in the case. 

The card was discovered by Alex Baber, a self-taught cryptographer and independent forensic examiner who co-founded Cold Case Consultants of America. Baber believes the fingerprint card could potentially help solve several cold cases—the murder of the Black Dahlia as well as the five murders attributed to the Zodiac Killer. 

He’s spent the last five years looking into the unsolved mysteries and claims to have cracked the mystifying, 13-letter code the Zodiac Killer used to identify himself in an April 1970 letter to the San Francisco Chronicle. According to Baber, the so-called Z13 cipher spells out “Marvin Merrill,” one of the names Margolis used.  

Whether the fingerprint card will help advance the investigation remains to be seen. But investigators working on the Black Dahlia case welcome any and all potential leads because, after nearly eight decades, they “don't have live witnesses to interview," Mojarro told Fox News Digital. 

“This is probably one of the most difficult cases [to solve], realistically, because of the time that’s passed," he added.

The Black Dahlia is the nickname given to Elizabeth Short, a 22-year-old aspiring actress found dead in 1947. She was discovered naked, with her body cut in half at the waist and drained of blood. Short’s corpse was covered in deep cuts, and a “Glasgow smile” had been sliced ear-to-ear across her cheeks. 

Based on the lack of blood found at the scene, police determined she’d been killed elsewhere, then moved. Her body had been butchered with surgical precision, leading investigators to believe her killer likely worked in medicine.

The case created a media circus with reporters playing up the crime and sullying Short’s reputation with unfounded rumors about her lifestyle and dating habits, Kevin Hale, a retired police chief who now serves as chair of the criminal justice program at Post University, tells A&E Crime + Investigation. 

The sensationalized coverage fueled a “morbid fascination” with Short’s death among the public, he adds. “New theories and rumors were emerging daily in Los Angeles.” 

Police have investigated numerous suspects over the years, including Margolis, who was a 21-year-old World War II veteran studying pre-medicine at the University of Southern California at the time of Short’s murder. 

Margolis briefly lived with Short three months before her murder, but he didn’t admit that to investigators right away. After being questioned in connection with the crime, he moved to Chicago and changed his name to Marvin Merrill, then to Marty Merrill. He died of cancer in July 1993 at the age of 68. 

It’s now been nearly 80 years since Short was murdered. Given the amount of time that has elapsed, it’s “unlikely” the case will be solved at this point, according to Hale.   

“If she were still alive, Elizabeth Short would turn 102 in July,” he says. “This means that any of her contemporaries, or even witnesses, would likely be 95 years old or older at this point. Anyone with a memory of the events is likely very old or deceased.”

However, Dr. Leslie Dobson, a clinical and forensic psychologist, is more optimistic. She points to recent technological advances that have helped solve numerous decades-old cold cases—but, she says, those tools alone won’t be enough to solve the Black Dahlia case.

“Frankly, someone needs to spill the tea,” she tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “Deathbed confessions, family members coming forward, a journal found in an attic or under a bed ... Secrets have a way of outliving the people who keep them.”

The killer is likely dead at this point, which means there would be no prosecution, no punishment and no justice. However, she notes, solving the case would still provide closure for Short’s family members, the countless investigators who have worked on the case over the last eight decades and members of the public. 

No matter what happens, Dobson hopes Short will eventually be remembered as a person and a victim, rather than as a legendary character.

“What often gets lost,” she says, “is that Elizabeth Short was a 22-year-old woman who was brutally murdered. The case attracted a carnival of false confessors, media exploitation and amateur theorizing that, in many ways, buried her as a person under the legend of ‘the Black Dahlia.’ If there’s one thing solving this case could do beyond justice, it’s restoring her humanity.”