What To Know
- Filmmakers Jeff Thomas and Kimberly Lupini believe they have solved the Black Dahlia murder after finding evidence at a motel in LA.
- Their investigation in the upcoming docuseries “Deconstructing Dahlia” involves expert analysis of what happened to Elizabeth Short.
- The team is now seeking public support to access Short’s unredacted autopsy report from the LAPD.
Filmmakers claimed to have solved the grisly “Black Dahlia” murder case from nearly 80 years ago.
On January 15, 1947, the body of Elizabeth Short, 22, was found in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. She was sliced in half at the waist, with the sides of her mouth cut to the ear in a “Glasgow smile.” However, no blood was found at the scene — indicating that she was murdered at a different location.
Fast-forward to today, and filmmaker Jeff Thomas and producer Kimberly Lupini of Talestorm Productions think they solved the case after discovering an old blood stain hidden behind a wall at an LA motel.
“We believe we know who the killer is,” Thomas told People in an article published on July 1. “We believe we know where the murder was committed. We believe we know what the murder weapon was.”
The investigation into Short’s death will be featured in the docuseries Deconstructing Dahlia. “This is not a documentary about Elizabeth’s murder,” Thomas said. “It’s an investigation into what happened to deconstruct it start[ed] off with that one piece of information that we had.”
While making the doc, the son of a detective in Short’s case shared a crucial tip that led to an important discovery. Thomas assembled a team of experts, also enlisting the help of Leslie Thompson, a senior criminalist with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, to search for evidence at a motel in LA that has been in operation since the 1940s. There, they found “evidence of a major bloodshed event” in layers of drywall after pulling at a loose piece of baseboard.
Additionally, the team reportedly obtained “thousands” of pages of files that were never made public.
“A lot of these reports give us a great idea of the comings and goings of the killer, but also of Elizabeth Short as well. We can see the points of intersection which also tie in with this motel,” Thomas explained. “Every place in the files of where eyewitnesses saw blood is where we found blood in the room.”
Today, Thomas and his team need access to Short’s unredacted autopsy report from the LAPD. They are now asking for the public’s help by signing a petition asking the LAPD to release the autopsy at Change.org/JusticeforElizabeth.
A release date for Deconstructing Dahlia has not been announced.