Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack - Season 5, Episode 13 - Full Episode | Forensic Files

this program is about unsolved mysteries whenever possible the actual family members and police officials have
participated in recreating the events what you were about to see is not a news broadcast in the 1940s Elizabeth Short
arrived in Hollywood with dreams of stardom but at the age of 22 her life was snuffed out by a gruesome unknown
killer nearly 50 years later the death of the Black Dahlia remains one of the great unsolved murder cases of the
century when she was just 16 Brenda Morel was abruptly thrust into adulthood left alone to care for five younger
brothers and sisters after surviving a harsh cold winter Brenda could only watch helplessly as the children were
taken from her one by one and from Deadwood South Dakota we'll bring you the bizarre tale of a ghostly alliance
between a psychic in England the restless spirit of a legendary lawman join me for these intriguing stories on
another edition unsolved mysteries [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] her looks were unmistakable she had jet
black hair and a penchant for wearing black dresses and lingerie those who knew her best said she had a tattoo of
an exotic flower on her inner thigh [Music] around Hollywood she was known as the
Black Dahlia and in 1947 she became the centerpiece of one of the most celebrated murder investigations in
American history on a cool crisp morning that January the nude nude elated body of 22-year old Elizabeth Short was
discovered in a weed infested lot in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles what made the murder so unique was a barbaric
nature of the crime the black dahlias body had been neatly severed in half gutted and drained of blood you know
that's like whoever did this cleaned her up and then just dumped I mean their phones absolute drop of blood
anywhere to be found as you can see the cuts on the body are incredibly clean precise almost as if it
were done professionally her face had been very brutally cut from ear to ear and a grin like this her throat had been
cut and she had been mutilated sexually and basically she was the worst case of a sex crime in history Los Angeles
County it was in a quiet peaceful neighborhood not far from here the body of Elizabeth Short was discovered nearly
half a century ago ever since the cases baffled law enforcement officials and crime buffs
alike today large shared claims to have evidence which links the killer the black dahlia to another notorious
murderer Cleveland's infamous torso Slayer he is best remembered for having evaded one of
the country's most celebrated crime fighters a man I came to know quite well Eliot Ness between 1935 and 1940 - Eliot
Ness served as Public Safety Director in Cleveland Ohio during his tenure the city was
terrorized by a string of sadistic unsolved murders which Lawrence sure believes are directly connected to the
Black Dahlia case how the life of the legendary lawman and the death of an obscure aspiring actress became
intertwined is a story well worth exploring we can have someplace else where did you
have in mind Elizabeth shorts life was as sad as it was brief like so many other young women
she had been lured Hollywood with dreams of becoming a star but she soon discovered that fame was an illusive
fantasy with a career going nowhere and her money depleted Elizabeth eventually drifted into prostitution can you take
me home yes I will I need to can you take me to Los Angeles yeah thank you Elizabeth Short final days were shrouded
in mystery she seemed to be constantly on the move and was last seen leaving a diner in San Diego with a man who has
never been identified she called him red when she spoke to him in the diner and he did have reddish
colored hair however the police were never able to positively identify him although some people felt that he might
have been Robert Manley Robert Manley was a hardware salesman who had dated Elizabeth Short police brought him in
for questioning but cleared him of the crime other men who were involved with Adalia were also interrogated but each
like man Lee had an airtight alibi the authorities were completely stumped then a mysterious package was mailed to a
local newspaper a package from the killer look what I found in the man here's Dolly's belongings let her to follow
inside the envelope they found Elizabeth shorts address book which was in reality
her trick book one of the pages in that book is missing and it is undoubtedly true that upon that page was the name of
the man who actually had killed her the package was a closest anyone ever got to
the black daya's killer until Lawrence sure began to research the case in 1989 and connected it to the torso slayings
in Cleveland that investigation was a great unsolved case of Eliot neces career in 1935 after ness left the
renowned crime busting team The Untouchables he was appointed public safety director in Cleveland oh can you
throw any light on the Kingsbury run murders not at this time on the body girl 8:00 this morning
the arms and legs have been cut off scene of the crime the minister looking into captain yes sir between 1934 and
1938 no less than 13 mutilated bodies were discovered in the Kingsbury run district and surrounding areas of
Cleveland the victims were all prostitutes or Drifters that killer had dismembered and bisected most of the
bodies with surgical precision as would happen nine years later in the case of the Black Dahlia let's go Oh Pete I want
you and your footmen concentrate your surveillance in Kingsbury by the end of 1938 it had been several months since
the last Cleveland killing in December the City Police Chief received a letter which gave the first indication that the
torsos lair had moved west and it's from the butcher Eliot says he's killed a woman there in that letter the torso
killer describes the fact that he is left Cleveland and has come to California as he described it sunny
California and is now performing medical experiments upon his guinea pig victims
here in Los Angeles excuse me can you direct me to Crenshaw and forth about three blocks down
straight ahead in the letter a killer brag that he had already murdered one victim and buried the head in a gully in
Southwest Los Angeles the butchered body of the Black Dahlia would be found in that same area eight
years later the last Cleveland torso murder was committed in 1938 so when he describes coming to Los Angeles in late
1938 that does correspond chronologically with the fact that the torso killer had stopped killing earlier
that year in Cleveland in the letter the killer referred to himself as a DC a doctor of chiropractic he said quote I
felt bad operating on those people but science must advance however the letter is just the beginning of the torsos
layer black dahlia connection the killer apparently had a fetish for cleanliness
and cleaned the dahlias body very carefully with water washed it very carefully shampooed her hair and
scrubbed her with a bristle brush so severely that he left bristles embedded in her skin the cleveland victims also
indicate that there were attempts to clean bodies and he was attempting to get rid of trace evidence a butcher
knife was used to bisect the Dahlia and a butcher knife was definitely the weapon that was used to dismember
decapitate and bisect victims in Cleveland police determined that Elizabeth Short had been held captive
and tortured for several hours before being killed she had wounds on her neck arms and legs
that indicated she had been tied with ropes several of the cleveland victims had exactly the same type of marks
suggesting that they had been tortured in exactly the same manner also the dodgiest body had been arranged in a
sexually suggestive position the same is true of some of the torso Slayers victims
however there was one significant difference the Dahlia unlike most of the torso Slayers victims was not
decapitated the torso killer killed other victims in other places in the 40s and he did not capitate some of those
victims either so it is not necessarily true that the mere fact of decapitation sets all the victims of the torso killer
apart and then if he didn't decapitate the Dahlia that means she could not possibly have been killed by the same
man all he did was simply change his MO in a rather small way many people believe that Eliot Ness actually knew
the Slayers identity but never had enough evidence to prove it in court in 1947 Eliot Ness retired from public life he
later told his biographer Oscar Fraley but after he developed a profile of the killer he had been approached by a
member of Cleveland's high society this lady socialite who was working with him came to him and said a member of one of
our influential families fits your profile so Eliot said that's fine let's meet hello thanks for coming you're welcome
may I ask what this is regarding yeah officer wouldn't have tell me Brian would you bring the gentleman a seat
please this man admitted that he had been to medical school so Elliot thought surely
he had the guy have you ever been to Kingsbury run after sunset no les said he gave the man to lie-detector tests
both times the suspect failed do you live in Cleveland yes nest then directly confronted the
suspect and said to him I think you are the killer and the suspect said well think it you have to prove it have you
ever paid for the services of a prostitute no soon after he took the lie-detector test
the suspect voluntarily committed himself to a hospital Lawrence sure believes this act was part
of a complex deal a killer made to keep his family name out of the newspapers around that time the torso slayings in
Cleveland abruptly stopped Ness believed that this would be the end of the case because the suspect was so deranged that
he would probably remain in a mental institution for the rest of his life but if the torso Slayer was locked away in
Ohio how could the murders have continued in other parts of the Midwest than later
Los Angeles perhaps one crucial point was overlooked when the killer entered the hospital I'm
well sorry I was late sweetheart if one is voluntarily in a mental hospital you are free to legally walk out anytime you
want and I think that's exactly what he did I think he used the Mental Health System most of his career when things
got tough for the investigations heated up he simply checked himself into a mental institution waited until they
cool down and then checked himself out again and departed and continued killing Eliot Ness never publicly identified the
suspect and took the name with him to the grave it bothered Ness a great deal that the mad butcher was able to escape
punishment Elizabeth Short was simply one of a number of victims who were slain by the same killer he was the most
prolific mass murderer in the history of the United States and to this day his true identity
remains unknown [Music] next the poignant story of a woman looking for her three youngest siblings
whom she hasn't seen in years on a September afternoon in 1961 outside Lawrenceville Pennsylvania a woman named
Betty Nickerson made a decision that would forever alter the lives of her six children Betty who was twice divorced
had moved the children to a remote farmhouse leaving her teenage daughter Brenda Meryl in charge I'm gonna ride
into town with the movers so you have to take care of your brothers and sisters well aren't you coming back up here
tonight Betty yourself plan to live in town where she had just bought a restaurant
but mom I can't take care of the kids all by myself Brenda we've already discussed this I'm
not gonna argue now you gonna fix those children some dinner she said either the kids would have to
go to a home or I could quit school and take care of them [Music] I couldn't see the kids going man you
know so why it's cool I never thought my mother would do things like that it was a deep hurt you
know like what did I do to deserve this that day was the beginning of a frustrating difficult year for 16 year
old Brenda Merrill still a child herself brenda was forced to take on the burden
of parenthood virtually alone to experience many of the traumas of raising young children but also to
experience some of the precious joys Brenda took over her mother's rolled completely with all five of her siblings
Glenda Keith butch Linda and Eric the children ranged in age from two to nine the oldest boy butch was death and none
of them except Brenda had ever been to school god is great God is good let us thank you
the children's mother Betty never once visited the farm house even though her business was thriving occasionally
Brenda's boyfriend brought up food from Betty's restaurant Brenda supplemented their meals with
vegetables from the garden it was just like a normal family because I was like their mother you know it just went you
wash clothes you you did the dishes you got their dinner and you got to breakfast and you got their supper and
you get him scrubbed up for bed you know and you sing them songs before they go to sleep you know like a normal
household [Music] as cold weather came on Brenda was forced to Hut small game to feed the
children memories of her old life began to hurt her there was a time did you think why can't I go out dancing her why
can't I go out bowl and you know or why can't I just go out with the kids to have a good time but you know after you
leave school and you quit you have no friends no more so I didn't have no friends after that because there was
nobody up there to be friends with so the kids were my friends you know they were my my life Brenda and the children
made it through the winter and just as adapt chilly spring arrived their fuel ran out in desperation Brenda
chopped the children's rubber tire swing into pieces and fed the pieces into the
old wood stove I don't know where how I even got her who told me that if you put
tires in with your wood it'll burn good you know you get good heat so that's what I did and boy did I get good eat
Brenda there's something burning I thought on that word you know get the kids out that's all I can think of is
get the kids out here it's gonna blow the second floor of the farmhouse was completely destroyed but for Brenda it
was a blessing in disguise I really felt relieved that I would never have to go back there again it was
a great relief from my chest you know mom will have to take some responsibilities further these kids when
I get them off there you know reluctantly Betty took her children in the man Betty lived with assumed that
the three youngest were Brenda's a few weeks later Brenda married her boyfriend they moved
to Corning New York twenty-eight miles away and took Eric with him Betty immediately began to farm the other
children out Linda went to live with a family across the street butch was enrolled in a State School for the Deaf
Glenda and Keith were kept together and sent to live with an acquaintance of Betty's a week later Brenda and her new
husband took Eric to visit Glinda and Keith Brenda was horrified by the children's living conditions it was just
a blanket on the floor with the kids laying on the floor and there was cockroaches crawling all over
I got furious Glenda Keith get up I'm getting you out of here what do you think you're doing I'm
taking the kids wanna tell you are I'm calling the cops I said that's just what I want you to call the cops cuz I know
they want these kids playing this mess go on take him get out of it you're right I don't want no trouble so that's
what I did I took the kids Brenda went straight to her mother's house what do you want what a blended Keith's
doing here I just took him out of that pigsty where you left him it's time you started taking care of them
Brenda take those kids right back there now I will not I wouldn't keep a dog in that place I can't do anything about
that right now right now you never took care of him though he's been too busy catting around to take care of him right
now don't talk to your mother like that why don't you mind your own business her boyfriend brought back his hand was
gonna hit me for call my mother names and I said you better stop and listen before you strike because these are my
mother's kids these are not my kids these are Betty's kids Betty is that true look I'm taking the kids with me
tonight but you better tell mama to do something about him tomorrow I hated my mother for that I hate her
bad right then I really felt like I liked to hurt her you know I really wanted to hurt her because she I felt
she took a lot of my young life away beti notified the child welfare department and at Glendon Keith placed
in foster care Brenda thought it was only a temporary measure the Glendon Keith never came
back [Music] the following week Brenda was forced to turn Eric over to foster parents as well
I said nobody's taking Eric and she said yes they are they'll have legal papers they'll show you you take good care of
him okay don't worry honey we'll take good care of them give you this too I just had that feeling you know a
mother's instinct let's say that you're not gonna see your child again you know and I never did
[Music] two years later the house was torn down Eric and his foster family disappeared
[Music] 30 years have passed brenda has been reunited with her sister Linda and her
brother butch their mother Betty is now 78 and in a nursing home brenda butch and linda the search for the younger
siblings has deep and varied meaning yeah it's hard to explain missing somebody and not being able to Sam it
takes when you love somebody and you lose them it's like losing your whole life you have nothing more to go you
know no place to go without him butch Erskine also has a message for his lost sister and brothers I love you and miss
you I do I do [Music] Brenda hopes at when Eric Glenda and Keith are found she can finally make
peace with her mother I feel that they can forgive her then I can forgive her you know cuz I'm still here and they're
gone you know and I feel if they can forgive her I can do on the evening of our broadcast
Brenda Merrill single-minded determination to bring her family back together finally began to pay off an
hour after Brenda's story aired a man named Keith Robinson of Hornell New York contacted our telecenter and said that
he was Brenda's long-lost brother Brenda call me that same man like five minutes later he was talking and I
mentioned about having a photograph that she had aired on the program and I basically told her in or detail for
detail what was in the photo so she knew that I was her brother on December 19th
1992 just in time for Christmas Keith Robinson and his wife and children traveled to Montour Falls New York for
an emotional reunion with his sisters Brenda and Linda and his brother butch he had not seen them in more than 30
years I thought a lot about what they were gonna be like you know if they were gonna love me for just being our brother
or lovey for what I am now today if they were gonna accept my family into their hurt because it was over over a 30-year
period of waiting and looking it's a great Christmas present you don't know he is the greatest Christmas
present especially his wife and kids - he has a nice wife and kids for everyone involved the reunion was bittersweet
their joy tempered by the knowledge that one brother was still missing Eric Nickerson was still a toddler when
his family was split apart just five weeks after we filmed this update he too was found Eric's name is now
Richard Moore and he lives in Tulsa Oklahoma with his wife and two children in February of 1993 he was reunited with
his sisters Brenda and Linda after more than 30 years of separation Brenda Miller's long search to find all
her brothers and sisters was finally over when we returned a ghostly tale of the Wild West some ghost stories no
matter how unbelievable are just too good to pass up we next have the unusual tale of a legendary lawman a psychic in
England a small town of South Dakota where fact fantasy and history have come together to tease the imagination it all
began more than a century ago in the late 1870s out dakota was booming with cold fever attracting out Dells
gamblers and swindlers mining towns dotted the landscape perhaps the most infamous was deadly it was here that
Wild Bill Hickok was shot to death and Calamity Jane practiced her trade of a house of ill repute
it was a wild wooly town the miners just absolutely were raising hell in this town most towns are 95% solid citizens
and 5% characters and dead with the reverses grew finally in the summer of 1876 a call went out for a man who could
bring law and order to the community the call was answered by Seth Bullock would
come into town from Montana a few months earlier he became Deadwood's first sheriff after what I have read he didn't
have to use a gun actually the story is that one look from his very penetrating gaze was enough to quit almost all
breakers [Music] sheriff Bullock took his cleanup campaign throughout the territory one
afternoon in 1887 he encountered three men whom he took at first glance to be cattle rustlers what the hell's going on
here what are you boys doing in these parts we're looking for a horse thief what's
your name my name is Theodore Roosevelt I'm the deputy sheriff of Billings County were these other fellas you got
with You sheriff big kin Theodore Roosevelt but all to become the best of friends
when Roosevelt formed the Rough Riders Seth joined up Teddy of course would later be elected president and in 1905
Seth was an honored guest at the inauguration but even in Deadwood not many people knew that when President
Roosevelt died in 1919 the sheriff arranged to have this memorial called the friendship tower erected just
outside of town nine months later Seth Bullock himself passed away and was buried at a gravesite overlooking the
monument today Deadwood is once again a boomtown thanks to the passage of the law
legalizing low stakes gambling the Bullock hotel founded by Seth in 1895 has been revitalized and according to
some the spirit of Seth Bullock can occasionally be seen meandering through the hallways at this point over 30
employees and a handful of hotel guests have had experiences here to the point where it's commonplace to the point
where we laugh about it and just take kind of a lot of fun in the fact that we feel that we're not alone here
gnorm Stephens a slot machine supervisor at the hotel says that one morning he was working in the basement but a
mysterious shadow fell across the wall it was a figure of a man but when norm turned the shadow vanished
a few weeks later operations manager Joey George had his own ghostly encounter he claims that when he walked by the bar
after closing time all of the stools were lined up in a row Joey stepped into the office and heard
unusual noises behind him he returned to the bar all of the stools had been moved
but both of these mysterious incidents paled in comparison with another hotel workers experience in 1989 we had a
young employee who was I think about 18 at the time and he was working in the back which is his the restaurant now and
he came flying out of the back room and he was just ghost white and said that he
saw a figure in western attire with jeans tucked into the boots and what he had seen
scared him because he felt that it wasn't real and he was very very much afraid and he would never go back into
the kitchen by himself after that and thereafter quit the people of Deadwood always assumed it was a ghost of Seth
Bullock who was haunting the hotel then in April of 1991 apparent confirmation came from a most unlikely source
[Music] 5,000 miles away in Dorset England a man who claimed to be a psychic said he
began receiving messages from beyond the grave by pure coincidence the psychics name was sandy Bullock occasionally
various people popped through and the name Seth Bullock I thought perhaps it was an ancestor that was coming through
to say hello or something like that and I rather dismissed it but the spirit of Seth Bullock did not go away sandy
claims herself communicated with him through a Native American guide who issued a warning to the people of
Deadwood a period of lawlessness loomed on the horizon may happen in 1993 it could happen again in Deadwood in 1993
that way the psychic warning seems so urgent the sandy immediately wrote an open letter to the proprietors of the
Bullock hotel I thought if I write to someone in this place called Deadwood they'll just think I'm a nutty old
Englishman and forget it you know throw it away a few weeks later Sandy's letter arrived at the Bullock
Hotel which at the time was undergoing extensive renovations all information at the time as I read it I thought to
myself well he found a book someplace on Deadwood read it and wrote to me but at
the very bottom of the letter it mentioned that says says he can't haunt the hotel right now
because of all the banging that's going on and I thought to myself what's driving me crazy too so but he also said
but that he'll be back and you'll know it's old Seth quote unquote and that is when again the hair stood up on the back
of my neck because that was my aunt's pet name for Seth anytime something strange would happen Jerry would say old
Seth is up to his tricks again local journalist Trina Webb was intrigued and decided to write back to Sandy Bullock
and in this letter I said to him I am categorized I suppose neither as a believer or a non-believer I will treat
your story with the utmost respect however I have a lot of readers who will be totally skeptical about your story
because of the skepticism I would like to pose to you a test question who was the well-known person who was a
close friend of Seth bullocks and how is Bullock's grave positioned in relation to that friendship when I got his letter
in response to my test question he said tall trees block the view from his old bones but Teddy and he still meet in the
afterlife and I said whoa and I still get goose pimples when I think about that Rena believes the message referred
to a stand of pine trees which now obstructs the view of Theodore Roosevelt's monument from Seth Bullock's
gravesite it was a story that was not well known and I there was no way sandy Bullock sitting in Dorset England could
have researched this I mean it's just not possible [Music] there's just too much evidence of Seth's
presence in this town and particularly at the Bullock hotel to discount it perhaps other people might feel
differently all I know is the evidence seems to point very strongly in the direction of Sheriff Seth Bullock still
being on the job in Deadwood South Dakota today [Music] now about Seth Bullock's dire prediction
we just have to wait and see curiously in 1993 there are plans to raise a gambling stakes from the present $5
limit some fear this will introduce a new criminal element in Deadwood perhaps that is what prompted ol says urgent
warnings Friday March 1st 1991 for most of the patrons at a biker bar in central
New Jersey it seemed like the start of an ordinary weekend however Gloria Brown a friend of the owners would soon become
a key witness in a bizarre missing-persons case she was helping up behind the bar when a young woman a
stranger drifted in at about 3:45 p.m. can I get something honey I'm sorry if you're gonna sit here if you have to
order something I don't do you want a soda she seemed very depressed she didn't smile
she didn't hardly speak and very strange very strange several days later Gloria Braun saw this
flyer she was startled to realize that the sad young woman strongly resembled Dede Rosenthal would vanished under
peculiar circumstances the week before Gloria Browns account was a first indication that Dede might still be
alive but before police could talk to the stranger in the bar she too had disappeared
the uncertain fate of Dede Rosenthal has left her family heartbroken and authorities baffled DD's trail is
obscured by conflicting clues unexplained phone calls and not one but two alleged sightings nothing about the
case makes any sense Dede Rosenthal hardly seemed the type to be at the center of an unsolved mystery 32
year-old Dede Rosenthal was a highly regarded therapist who worked with autistic children while she failed to
show up at her clinic on Monday February 25th 1991 her colleagues naturally became concerned one of Dedes co-workers
notified police and met them at DD's apartment immediately it was clear that something was wrong the front door was
unlocked and the Sunday paper was still untouched inside everything seemed to be in order
without signs of ransacking or a struggle however investigators discovered that Dede was being evicted
from her apartment she apparently spent money freely and occasionally went into debt the missing girl had been having
some financial difficulties so it kind of gave rise to the belief that maybe became overwhelming and she left of her
own volition Dede just would not be the person just to take off if she was going
to take off or was gonna go away she would either call her mom or she would call me
disquieting evidence hinted that didi had met with foul play her purse had been left behind with her keys
identification and credit cards inside one discovery in particular suggested the didi might have been abducted
there's a cat out here John didi would not have left her cat her most loved possession
she took her cat everywhere where she went she would never have let it let alone alone in the apartment but let it
lone sitting out on a balcony she would not have put it out the door and say alright goodbye I'm leaving that that's
not that's totally out of Judy's character police found Dee Dee's car parked in his usual spot but oddly her
briefcase with all her client records had been left in the car if didi or two take off on her own
why wouldn't she take her car I knew something was horribly wrong with this scenario
the evidence of foul play was mounting the investigation raised the distinct possibility that Dede Rosenthal had been
kidnapped and perhaps murdered sometime between 10:00 p.m. Friday and dawn Sunday that conclusion was bolstered by
an account from one of Dee Dee's neighbors the woman was awakened around 3:45 a.m.
Sunday morning by strange sounds coming from Dedes apartment she heard what sounded like a scream followed by a thud
and she likened it to someone falling out of bed and being startled [Music] five hours later at around 8:30 the same
neighbor heard the balcony door open and assumed Dede was at home however no one
can be certain whether it was Dede or an assailant in the apartment but unexpected evidence a Dede might still
be alive surfaced a week later when the woman who resembled her wandered into the New Jersey biker hangout if it was
in fact Dede she was pitifully confused about her identity I do believe it was her I really do she she looked so much
like the picture if she had only smiled I I would have known definitely but it looked like her the young woman said her
name was Laurie and that she was trying to get to Florida she left with one of the bikers who is not a suspect he told
police he dropped her off the next day at a liquor store near a major highway just one week later ladies and celia was
startled by a mysterious phone call who is this is that you Celia called me she was very excited she
told me that she just received a phone call from someone that she swore was my sister indeed
five weeks went by with no more news then Dedes brother received a tip that his sister was in Florida
approximately April 15 I received a phone call from a male party who asked me if I was blaming Rosenberg I was her
brother which I said yes they said we've seen D D or we spotted D D in the sand the Fort Lauderdale area as I started
talking the phone disconnected a year passed and Deedee's family still had no idea whether she was dead or
alive then on September 5th 1992 the woman who called herself Laurie returned to the biker bar
she had dyed her hair blonde and claimed to have been in Florida my impression was that she had had a nervous breakdown
excuse me well if you are DeeDee you better get in touch with your mother she's pretty upset I believe that she
just turned away from me because she didn't want to have anything to do with what I was saying because I knew and she
knew that I knew the woman known as lorry was last seen in Lakehurst New Jersey tavern where she
was dropped off by a patron of the bar once again she disappeared before she could be interviewed by police who were
skeptical the DD and Laurie are one in the same person today investigators still lack sufficient evidence to
determine whether Dede was murdered or is wandering the streets uncertain of her own identity
[Music] join me next time perhaps you may be able to solve a mystery [Music] [Applause]
[Music]

Brief Summary

The episode covers the Black Dahlia murder, Brenda Merrill's struggles, and ghost stories from Deadwood, including a psychic's connection to Seth Bullock.

Key points

The Black Dahlia's Gruesome Murder. Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, was brutally murdered in 1947, leaving a mystery that endures.
A Shocking Confrontation. Eliot Ness confronts a suspect in the torso murders, leading to a chilling revelation.
Brenda's Burden of Parenthood. At just 16, Brenda Merrill took on the responsibility of raising her siblings after her mother left.
A Long-Lost Reunion. Brenda's determination to reunite her family leads to an emotional encounter with her brother.
Bittersweet Reunion. An emotional reunion after 30 years, but one brother is still missing.
Seth Bullock's Haunting. Seth Bullock's spirit is said to still roam the Bullock Hotel in Deadwood.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Elizabeth Short's life was as sad as it was brief.

Describing the tragic life of Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia.

4:49WatchMay 23, 2019

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

More from True Crime Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.