LONE WOMAN MURDERS

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

Between 1943 and 1949, over a dozen unsolved murders occurred in Los Angeles which involved the sexual mutilation of young attractive women. Authorities suspected at the time that they could have been the work of a single unidentified serial killer. 

In 1949, a Los Angeles County grand jury was tasked with investigating the failure on the part of law enforcement to solve the cases. As a result, further investigation was done on the homicides although none of them were solved.

• On July 27, 1943, the son of a greenskeeper discovered the nude body of 41-year-old Ora Elizabeth Murray lying on the ground near the parking lot of the Fox Hills Golf Course.Murray had been severely beaten about her face and body, and the autopsy determined that her cause of death was due to "constriction of the larynx by strangulation". Murray was last seen on July 26, 1943, attending a dance at the Zenda Ballroom in downtown Los Angeles with her sister before leaving with an unidentified man. Her murder remains unsolved.

1. John Gilmore's 1994 book Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder, suggests a possible connection between Short's murder and that of 20-year-old Georgette Bauerdorf. At 11 a.m. on October 12, 1944, Bauerdorf's maid and a janitor arrived to clean her apartment in West Hollywood where they found her body face down in her bathtub. It is believed that Bauerdorf was attacked by a man who was waiting inside the apartment for her. Gilmore suggests that Short's employment at the Hollywood Canteen, where Bauerdorf also worked as a hostess, could be a potential connection between the two women. However, the claim that Short ever worked at the Hollywood Canteen has been disputed by other sources, such as the retired Times copy-editor Larry Harnisch. Regardless, Steve Hodel has still suggested that both women were killed by the same individual since in both cases the media received notes supposedly from the killer taunting the police and boasting of his skills.

• The murder of 44-year-old Jeanne "Nettie" French on February 10, 1947, was also considered by the media and detectives as possibly being related to Short's killing. French's body was discovered in West Los Angeles on Grand View Boulevard, nude and badly beaten. Written on her stomach in lipstick was what appeared to say "Fuck You B.D." and the letters "TEX" below. The Herald-Express covered the story heavily and drew comparisons to the Short murder less than a month prior, surmising the initials "B.D." stood for "Black Dahlia". According to historian Jon Lewis, however, the scrawling actually read "P.D.", ostensibly standing for "police department."
• On March 12, 1947, the nude body of 43-year-old Evelyn Winters was found at 12:10 a.m. in a vacant lot of an abandoned rail yard in Norwalk, California, along the Los Angeles River.Winters had been bludgeoned and strangled to death. She was last seen by a male acquaintance, James Joseph Tiernan, who stated to authorities that he saw her leave the Albany Hotel in Los Angeles at 8:00 p.m.
• Dorothy Ella Montgomery, aged 36, was found at about 10:30 a.m. in a vacant field on May 4, 1947, under a pepper tree in Florence-Graham, California.Montgomery had died due to strangulation and was found nude and beaten. She had been missing since 9:30 p.m. the previous evening when she had left her home to pick up her daughter at a dance recital.
• On May 12, 1947, the body of 39-year-old Laura Eliza Trelstad was discovered by an oil company patrolman in an oil field on Long Beach Boulevard. Trelstad had been sexually assaulted, strangled with a belt and then thrown from a moving vehicle. According to her husband, they had both been playing cards the night prior at their home in 2211 Locust Avenue, Long Beach, with friends in the late afternoon.Trelstad's husband wanted to continue; but she had become bored and left to go to the Crystal Ballroom. She stated: "If the boys can play poker, we girls can go dance." She was not seen alive again.
• On July 8, 1947, the naked body of Rosenda Josephine Mondragon, aged 21, was discovered by a postal clerk in a gutter near Los Angeles City Hall. Mondragon had been strangled by a silk stocking. She was last seen by her estranged husband that morning, at 1 a.m., when he had been served by her with divorce papers at his residence. She then left entering a stranger's car.
• On the evening of October 2, 1947, Lillian Dominguez, aged 15, was walking home with her sister and a friend in Santa Monica, when a man approached them and proceeded to stab Dominguez in the heart with a stiletto blade, between her second and third ribs. One week later, on October 9, a note on the back of a business card was left under the door of a furniture store. The message was written in pencil and read: "I killed the Santa Monica Girl, I will kill others."
• On February 14, 1948, 42-year-old Gladys Eugenia Kern, a Los Angeles real estate agent, was found stabbed in the back with a hunting knife in a vacant house that she was showing in the Los Feliz district at 4217 Cromwell Avenue.That afternoon Kern was last seen with an unidentified man at the counter of a nearby drugstore. The murderer had stolen her appointment book and had cleaned the murder weapon before he left.
• Cosmetologist Louise Margaret Springer, aged 35, was found murdered on June 13, 1949, in the backseat of her husband's convertible sedan alongside a street in South Central Los Angeles. She had been garroted with a length of clothesline that had been knotted and a stick had been inserted into her anus.Springer's husband notified law enforcement of her disappearance that evening when he returned from an errand inside her shop to find both Springer and his vehicle missing.
• Mimi Boomhower, aged 48, was last heard from when she telephoned a friend from her home in the 700 block of Nimes Road in Los Angeles on August 18, 1949. Between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m., the call ended. Five days after she vanished, Boomhower's white handbag was discovered in a phonebooth at a grocery store in Los Angeles. Boomhower was never heard from again, and she was later declared legally dead.
• On the evening of October 7, 1949, 26-year-old Jean Spangler left her home in Los Angeles, telling her sister-in-law that she was going to meet with her ex-husband before going to work as an extra on a film set. She was last seen alive at a grocery store several blocks from her home at approximately 6:00 p.m. Two days later, Spangler's tattered purse was discovered in a remote area of Griffith Park, approximately 5.5 miles (8.9 km) from her home; inside was a letter addressed to a "Kirk," which mentioned seeing a doctor.

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