mary pacios

Elizabeth Short, known to many as the mysterious Black Dahlia—Hollywood’s most notorious victim. Crime anthologists have cited her as the classic example of a woman who enticed her assailant, a woman “who wanted to be killed,” one whose lifestyle “made her ideal victim material.” But I knew her differently, simply as Bette, my next door neighbor and friend, a stunning young woman with a flawless complexion, the blackest of hair, and translucent blue eyes. I was only twelve-years old when she was sadistically murdered January of 1947—an infamous “unsolved” crime. The pain that I felt became a long, dark shadow over my life. A few months after her death, I started drawing pictures of Bette—first as Snow White, smiling, with two birds perched on her…