Tasha 0:00

Elizabeth Short made her way across the country to California in the forties, but she didn't find glitz and glamour in Los Angeles. Instead, she became a cautionary tale for young women who dreamed of life on their own terms. A warning dangers lurk when you abandon tradition, when you turn away from the good morals of this American life. This is what happens to women who step out of line, who leave home. Her face was in all the papers, but all anyone remembered her for the way she died and the name she was given, the Black Dahlia. I'm Tasha.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

I'm Matthew.

Tasha 0:43

And for almost 80 years, Elizabeth Shorts and the Black Dahlia stories have gotten real twisty. Welcome to Real Twisty Setting Stories Straight. This is part one of hopefully just a two-part series. We are meeting Elizabeth Short today. And in part two, we'll meet the Black Dahlia because they are very different women. And here's how we're going to tell the story because Elizabeth's crime scene is not an easy one to get through. In fact, her murder is quite gruesome. And the details of what her murderer did to her are very graphic. So today we're going to focus on Elizabeth's life, um, where she grew up, how she got to California in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Right.

Tasha 1:39

Um, really all the way up to the last days, her last moments alive. Um, and then part two will cover the discovery of her body, um, the creation of the Black Dahlia and the investigation.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah.

Tasha 1:51

So if you want to know the truth about who Elizabeth Short was, but the gore of the Black Dahlia case is not your dime, no problem. This episode is safe for you. And then in the next episode, we will drop timestamps in the show notes for you to hopefully kind of give you a fair warning for like from here to here so that you can like get the graphic parts. If you want to hear about the investigation and kind of like the the scandal and and how it affected society and her family, but you can't handle the gore. Hopefully, we can get you there.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

So that's a a learning curve. We've got to figure out. It'll be a learning curve for find that timestamp figure out thing.

Tasha 2:31

Yes, we're gonna we're gonna try real hard and hope that you guys are just very gracious. But speaking of family, we're also going to leave last name off of just a hell of a lot of individual story. Yeah, because yes, it happened in the 40s, and a lot of people that happen to be in the story are no longer with us. Their family members are still around.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Right.

Tasha 2:57

And we don't we don't want their worlds to be turned upside down. And we are seeing that with some recent articles and some recent podcasts and things like that. Some families' lives are kind of getting upturned from that. We want to to avoid mixing that up as much as possible.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

So, um, you know, we one thing that I don't get is when uh killers or whatever suspects, suspects, um, like why are family members getting persecuted for something that they weren't even a part of.

Tasha 3:25

They had nothing to do with and that seems to be like a very common thing. Yes. So yes, and so we will not be including the suspect suspects' last names because first of all, if you if somebody wanted to know the information, it's readily available. They could go find it wherever. But second of all, we just want to be respectful to their family members. We are not detectives, we are not you know, who are we to say that somebody's guilty? We're not anybody to say that's the guy.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

We're not criminal justice majors.

Tasha 3:54

No, and no one has been found guilty of the crime, so we're not gonna be good today. Speaking of names, though, Elizabeth never went by Elizabeth. It went by either Beth or Betty, and uh it kind of depended on what part of her life she was in and where she was at, even in the time period of her life where she was in California, and some places in California she went by Beth, and some places she went by Betty. To keep things simple for our story, because we are going to meet Betty in episode two, we're just gonna call her Beth because she liked Beth. She went by Beth. We're gonna call her Beth. It's just gonna make things a lot easier and less confusing. That's good. That's what we're gonna do. If anybody is looking for a really, really, really great resource on Beth's story, William J. Mann wrote a book that was published in January of this year. It's called The Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Mid-Century Hollywood. That was my book of choice for research. There are a lot of books out there. I've read several of them, but that is the one that I refer to a lot in the kind of cacophony of dates and moments.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

But you could really dig into the weeds if you really wanted to and find every curveball because we're into baseball season still.

Tasha 5:12

And so uh yeah, hence the uh Boston Red Sox.

SPEAKER_02 5:17

But you know, we're not original in this. There's a lot of podcasts out there that are that have already done episodes.

Tasha 5:23

Well, I wouldn't say we're not original.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Well, I mean, we're looking at a different take. Yes, but there's a lot of podcast resources, there's a lot of books, there's TV shows that have done stuff on the articles, there's everything out there.

Tasha 5:36

That we're maybe gonna talk about. Yeah, but there's lots of things, one or two true things in it. One or two, and so we had to decide what deal was baseline truth, and going through everything, it really felt like Mr. Manson, he's a Mr. Man.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

That's so generic, like a John Doe.

Tasha 5:55

I love it though. I would love to sit down and talk to William J Man. I just want to know like everything about his research.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

I he just I I didn't read the book, so I'm relying on you.

Tasha 6:07

Huge applause, applause, applause, if you yeah, just lots of applause for William J Man.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

I was just thinking of Lady Gaga. He said applause.

Tasha 6:17

Well, he he he did he did a dang thing. Um but I mean that was like years of research, and so so much right, so much research and um footwork, yeah, it it's amazing. So uh that is the book that I am linking to in the notes because that was a huge resource for me. Um, I am also linking to a ton of online websites, a ton of newspaper articles, the FBI files. The Los Angeles Police Department have kept a lot of their files very close to the chest. So we don't have those. Even this is kind of interesting and not in my notes, but something that I thought I would throw out there is that there is a documentary currently being made, and they have a um like uh uh an online petition trying to get people to sign so that um they can urge the LAPD to leave official like autopsy report, the the official crime scene report, things like that, their their original files, um, because they think that in their investigation and in their filmmaking process that they have found evidence that could lead to the official identification of a murderer.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Sounds fun.

Tasha 7:34

Does sound fun. So that's interesting. We don't have any of that, we're just regurgitators, is what we are today. We're gonna link all of our regurgitated information in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Yeah.

Tasha 7:46

In the immortal words of LeVar Burton. Don't take our words for it. Yeah, you know, go do the reading yourself if you want to. It's out there, it's really good stuff. So, of course, fun for us starts with. So, of course, the fun for us starts with a movie 2006, The Black Dahlia, yeah, based on the book by James Elroy. Screenplay by Josh Friedman, uh, who has been a part of the Avatar films 2025's Fantastic Four, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and the Terminator franchise. So he's got, you know, some blockbusters under his belt. Yeah. Directed by Brian De Palma, who has 42 directorial credits to his name. Very good. He's not been, you know, just sitting on his butt. He's done a few things. Among them, my favorites of his list Untouchables, Scarface, favorite of everything on his list, because we know how I feel about Stephen King.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Uh-huh. Yeah. I thought you were gonna say a different movie.

Tasha 8:44

Nope, Carrie, love it. So, some really celebrated films, and he does have a lot of film noir on his list, which is very important to note because the Black Dahlia is a neo noir. Yeah, and for people who don't know what neo-noir is or film noir, I do, and I can tell you all about it because of a wonderful class that I took in college. Shout out to Dr. Howard. Yes, he took a college course on film noir where we learned all about it. And film noir was made really kind of it's you're looking at like Great Depression, moving into World War II when all money is basically gone. There's no budget for anything. And they, on top of the fact that there's no money, the general consensus in America is like nobody trusts study anymore. What's lurking in the shadows? Can you trust big interword? Like, I'm really surprised that there's not like a big neo-noir uprising right now in film, just because kind of being a recurrence of those same kind of themes in society right now. But the 40s and 50s, the budgets for big films were gone. And so they had been doing like a lot of big musicals and you know, things like that. That is no more. Yeah. So instead, they're filming things with a lot of shadows, a lot of corners. You know, they're using a lot of like camera angles to, you know, this is where you're getting like simplified actors. Yes, the actor's face is like half of it's in shadow, half of it's in light, and that's how you're getting across that person is shady, or this person has conflict, or you know, I love film noir. I think that it's beautiful. You've got a lot of like Bogart films, a lot of detective films, like it's very and nothing ever ends really happy. Yeah, like so your hero is always very complicated.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

The best set you get is it ends indifferent, right?

Tasha 10:44

Yes, yes, and they do a lot of like point of view shots, yeah, which we do see Brian De Palma use in The Black Dahlia in one scene, but it just caught me so off guard that I was like, what the heck just happened? But it causes it conveys like a sense of paranoia and a sense of well, this was also like the beginning of Hitchcock, and so not the beginning of Hitchcock, but it is kind of his rise in America, yes, correct.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

But I mean, that's like where you get since it was low budget stuff, you see his camera work really well done because he's trying like Vertigo and things like that.

Tasha 11:21

Orson Wells.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Like he's he has to do with what he's got and he's figured out the magic of camera work really well.

Tasha 11:28

So with Neon Noir, because that's where we're living with the Black Dawg, it's a return or like an homage to film noir. Yeah, right? They're not doing everything. First of all, the films are not in black and white for the most part. Every now and then a neon noir will do a black and white film, but not really. But you're seeing a lot of the same coming through. My favorites of Neo Noir are gonna be like Memento, Fargo, a lot of O's at the end of the titles. I'm just catching Memento, Chinatown, Fargo, Blade Runner is really good, which is really weird because you think about like old detective films of the 40s, and then you've got Blade Runner, which is like a futuristic detective film. But Neo Noir harkens back to this like can't trust anyone kind of detective thing, but it's still Well, it's like the hero has issues too. Hero has right, yeah. Um, and and Neo Noir, I mean, it's still it's doing like the bit, it's doing the thing, right? There, so there are a few that do the film noir thing right in Neo Noir. I just don't think that this one of them.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Uh yeah.

Tasha 12:34

In fact, when I re-watched, because I saw this movie years and years ago, when I rewatched it, the movie ended, and I literally the first words out of my mouth were were, I can never get that time back. Like it it was just gone. It should be good. Brian De Palma is not like fadey at his craft, like he's good. Um, we've already mentioned his hits, and that he's done Neo Noir. Like he that's his that's his one of his strengths. Yeah, I mean that's that's what he makes his name on. Um, the cast is beloved. Yeah, you know, we've got Hillary Swank, we've got Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, you got uh Scarlett Johansson, yes, Fiona Shaw, who does an amazing job just at a dining room table, yeah. And uh it's got Rachel Minor, who plays Meg in Supernatural, yeah. So, like if you're one of those weirdos like us who loves supernatural, yeah, you were going Meg! Yeah, Meg with the weird sketchbook, and I hate every second of it. Like, I hate start to end. The only thing I like are the costumes. Yeah, like it's just not a good time for me. So the movie. I'm going to tell you a few things that the movie says. The poster for the movie said, inspired by the most notorious unsolved murder in California history. Opening credits read based on a novel by James Elroy. At the end of the train wreck, it says on the screen, while the story is inspired by the real murder of Elizabeth Short, the characters and specific incidents in the film are fictionally based on James Elroy's novel The Black Dahlia. But the film never clarifies what's specifically fictional and what parts are Elizabeth's story. So, Matthew, let's untwist. Can you tell us what in the movie is correct?

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Uh so in the movie, what is correct is the victim, Elizabeth Betty Short, uh, was a real 22-year-old aspiring actress that moved to California.

Tasha 14:31

And um Well, but she wasn't even an aspiring actress.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Well, I mean, that's one of the I mean, yes. She was moving to California to do stuff. I mean, but we find out that I mean, through time she decides that she wants, or she says she wants to. But anyways, all right. So the true part is it's very in this. It's her name. She's 22 years old. She's aspiring to do something. Um the black doll your name is correct. Um that the um kind of some the details of how they find her body are correct-ish. Uh, I don't know how much detail they get into the movie when they start talking about details.

Tasha 15:12

Some of the details, some of them I'm like, that's not yeah, correct.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

And then uh the media frenzy, like there was a media frenzy.

Tasha 15:20

It's a massive frenzy.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

And you know, that I mean it was like TMZ back then. So um, so yeah, that's probably all of the true stuff about it.

Tasha 15:29

Yeah, I mean, that's it. That's the whole that's the whole thing. That's everything.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

She's 22 year old. She has found on January 15th, uh, the 1947 condition of her body and some of the condition of her body.

Tasha 15:42

She was bisected, so we are gonna say that. Uh we aren't gonna go into any.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

We don't need to get into detail, especially for this episode.

Tasha 15:49

And she was in a vacant lot in Los Angeles, but even the lot that they put her in the movie was not even accurate. I'm like, really, really? Like they made that shady, and I was like, that's not easy. We'll go into all of that next time. But I am just telling you, like, I what irritated me about it, I'm just gonna say this much. Irritated me about how they portrayed the lot that she in is that they took this whole like she was found in a vacant lot, and they made it so scandalous, like she dropped in this like underworld of crime, and that is not what was scandalous about where she was found at all. It was scandalous that it was not an underworld of crime, it was like a neighborhood where children could find her. I mean, she was out there for children to find her.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Well, I mean, it was in a white neighborhood. Yes, as a to be more clear about it, yes.

Tasha 16:41

Yeah. So let's start with Beth. Let's go back. Let's so that's that's all we want to say about the movie. It's a horrible, horrible film that does no justice to Neo Noir, Film Noir, Brian De Palma, uh, any of the actors or actresses are in it. Josh Hartnett does his like scrunchy eyebrow thing pretty well. But I mean, good watching.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

But the detectives are not real. They weren't based on anyone real based on anybody real. Yeah, the solution to who the killer was. I mean, it's still an unsolved. So their solution at the end is way off.

Tasha 17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Um, and even like the way they portrayed her life um is not is not even like founded on anything.

Tasha 17:24

Wrong. No. And so and I read this because I don't even know how true this is, but I do know that James Elroy, the author of the book that the movie is based on, that his mother was murdered in an unsolved crime. And so there is some speculation that wrote this kind of as a response to as an outlet to but even that, I'm like, I I just don't, yeah. I don't know how that would give him any sort of internal respite. Like it's just so tumultuous. It's just, it's just not no. Um, I I will be honest, I have not read his book, and I have heard that his book is very, very good. So this is not anything against his book or what he's done. Like, don't come at me.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

I mean, it's a novel, it's called a novel. It's a novel, he straight up says it's a novel.

Tasha 18:13

Yeah. Um, but let's talk about the truth of Beth. The life of Beth. The life of Beth.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Yeah.

Tasha 18:19

Um, William J. Mann in his book does a great job of introducing Beth and where she came from. She was born July 29th, 1924, a few days after your birthday. You're both Leo's, but she was born in 1924, and you were born many generations later.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Yeah, no.

Tasha 18:39

Um, but she was born in Massachusetts in Hyde Park at She Go Red Sox. They won a lovely game today. We're very proud of them. So we're we're busting out our Red Sox cups. We're, you know, all the things. We're very excited. She was the middle of Phoebe and Cleo Short's five daughters, right? Smack in the middle. Her dad, Cleo, had set his family up pretty comfortably in Medford, Massachusetts, selling golf courses, but not the type of golf, like mini golf course.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Yeah.

Tasha 19:12

And not the kind that you and I are used to seeing where there's like windmills and dump the line with the water flowing, like through an alien's mouth or something. We've been to Orlando too many times. Yeah, their mini golf courses were like miniature golf courses, like they looked like golf courses, but they were all. But after the stock market crash of 29, no one wanted to mini golf. So, you know, around 1931, up to his years in debt, is drinking away his life. He's become an alcoholic, and he's got just his his business is has gone under. Yeah, he decides what what can I do? I'm going to abandon my family, like the real man that I am. And so he goes to the Charleston Bridge by Sullivan Square. Sullivan Square at the time was an early park and ride lot, it was on the edge of Boston. And he goes to the Charleston Bridge, his key in the ignition, and he leaves his car there and disappears, and leaves Phoebe with all five of their girls and all of the debts from his failing business. And he took all of the money from their savings. Wow, he's very upstanding. He's a great guy. Today it would have been about seven thousand dollars. He disappears. Beth was about seven years old, got two younger sisters, two older sisters. Her mother, Phoebe, was left to raise all five of them alone, working as a bookkeeper in Boston, going back and forth between Medford and Boston.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Now, if I might if I'm correct, this is the time when women cannot open bank accounts, all that stuff, and get credit, but they can inherit the debt of their husband.

Tasha 20:48

Yep, they she's she is screwed. She's got all his debt, but she has no credit.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Yeah, yep.

Tasha 20:54

Cannot open a bank account, cannot cannot do anything for herself. So in 1936, he moved the six of them into the third floor of a house that had been split into apartments. So the shorts had five rooms on the on the third floor. It was a kitchen, three bedrooms, and a dining room. And then there was like a shared bathroom for the house.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Okay.

Tasha 21:18

She did a really good job raising the girls. By the time Beth left for California, Phoebe's oldest daughter, Virginia, she went by the name Jenny. She was living in Berkeley, California. She was married. Her husband was a church deacon, and Jenny, she sang opera and she played the violin. Like she was very well known for just being very musical and very good at what she did.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

That's impressive.

Tasha 21:43

I know, right? The second oldest, her name was Dorothea. She went by Dot. Every time I read that or hear that, I always think of Dot from A League of Their Own.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

I yes. I don't I was totally thinking that too.

Tasha 21:55

Well, Dot during World War II, she served in the She was so smart that they brought her in to crack Japanese code.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

That's pretty cool. That is impressive.

Tasha 22:07

I can't do that.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

I can't speak Japanese.

Tasha 22:10

No, and not only could she speak Japanese, but she could speak it well enough to crack their code.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

That's pretty good.

Tasha 22:16

You know?

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Yeah.

Tasha 22:17

Because they're not just speaking Japanese, they're coding everything. Yeah. She was breaking the code. So after the war, she came back home to Medford, and she was living in Medford, but she had met a man during the war. He was also a Navy man and they had gotten engaged. So he had come back to Massachusetts as well. And then there was Beth. And then after Beth, there was Elnora who went by Noni. And then after Noni and Noni was working, she had a job and was helping out at home. And then there was the baby of the family who was Muriel. And Muriel had just graduated high school. She, Noni, and Dot still lived at home within that three family house. So the three-story house was broken up, family, family, family. The girls described Beth as independent, empathetic, and very protective of her younger sister. When she lived in Medford with her family, they had a neighbor named Mary who was about 10 years younger than Beth.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Okay.

Tasha 23:15

And she um is still alive today, which puts her at about 92 years old.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Wow.

Tasha 23:22

Yeah. She told Oxygen in an in an interview this year that Beth was always very friendly to everyone, and that she would take Mary for ice cream, and she'd stop by to share coffee with Mary's mom, and she would um sit with Mary's sister and listen to war updates on the radio. So she was just constantly like there, she would come around and just sit and be with people and try and uplift people. She said that when people were feeling down, like she went around and she would try and keep their spirits up. So we just get this real picture of Beth from Mary of this girl who just really went out of her way to try and keep spirits up. Yeah. Like, you know, she was just really there for the community, and the community really loved her. In man's book, he actually mentions Mary in his book, and he tells a story about Beth's relationship with her. And he says that when Mary was young, I think he said about five, there was a neighborhood boy that had assaulted Mary.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Oh, wow.

Tasha 24:26

And Beth found out about it, and she was completely heartbroken and just so upset about this. And so she decided to take it upon herself to kind of look out for Mary. And she would go and she would grab Mary whenever like her mom was busy or when her sister and brother couldn't be there for her. And she would take Mary for walks and she would take her to the movies. And she she just kind of took it upon herself to look out for Mary and be this like protection for Mary. Yeah, yeah. Mary told Oxygen, she said, I was a child, I didn't have a positive image about myself, but called Beth Betty. She said, Betty told me that if she ever had a little girl, she'd want her to be just like me. Yeah. So Beth just really was this person who would see people hurting. She wanted them to see better in themselves. She also just saw the better in so Phoebe, her mom, is just raising like really great young women in a time when, you know, not easy to do that. No, let alone do it as a single mom.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Yeah.

Tasha 25:32

And in man's book, he has several quotes from the youngest sister, Muriel, talking about Phoebe, their mother. And she talks about how hard her their mother fought for her growth for her girls to grow into just very respectable, strong, independent women who wanted to always take very good care of them. She wanted them to um know that they were loved, know that they were taken care of, know that their needs were met, but also wanted them to know how to take care of themselves.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Yeah.

Tasha 26:04

And so, in the midst growing up, as you know, children of a scandal, because their father is gone. Yeah. She is a single mother, so she is viewed as a scandal. And then there's this hardship of growing up with just one parent and it's a scorned woman as a mother. No, she is working her hardest to make sure that these girls are taken care of and that they can take care of themselves. She was very religious. She took her girls to church at the first Baptist church on every Sunday, which was a block from their house. But there was one lie that she, Muriel, said she faithfully always told. And that was that if anybody asked about her husband, told them that her husband was dead. And I think that was probably because it started as a truth for her. Yeah. When they found Leo's car on the bridge, the police thought that he had committed suicide.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yeah.

Tasha 26:58

And they investigated it as a suicide and kind of closed it out as a suicide. And it wasn't until later during the war draft in 1942 that Texas discovered him living there.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Oh wow.

Tasha 27:12

Yes. And that's when they found out that he had chosen that bridge to leave his car, specifically because it was so close to the transit hub at Sullivan Square. He used it as like his way to sneak off from his family and go like he just snuck into the crowd and disappeared.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Yeah.

Tasha 27:31

And so after they found him and Uncle Sam came knocking, he crawled back to Massachusetts and tried to get Phoebe to take him back. And she was like, dude, uh, you've been living in Texas for 11 years. Yeah. You left me here to raise our girls by myself.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Gave me all your debt.

Tasha 27:50

And you took all our money.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Yeah.

Tasha 27:52

Like piss off. And that was her answer. Her answer was piss off.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Good for her.

Tasha 27:57

I mean, I don't know that she said piss off, but she did tell him no. Hey, no. I hope she said hell no, but she was a very religious woman. Probably just said, thank you, no. Um, so got angry and was like, fine, you're not gonna have me, then I'm going to California.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Way to play victim.

Tasha 28:12

Right. Because that's who he is. Yeah. He's that guy. Phoebe was like, whatever, just go. He says, I'm going to California. And who would hope that that's the end of Leo's story in young women's lives? But he made a really big impact on Beth when he came home. She's 17. She hasn't seen him since she was seven. Her father's resurfaced, and Beth has had a really hard childhood. Not that the other girls haven't, but Beth suffered from pleurisy. And I had to look this up because I was like, what the heck is that?

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Yeah.

Tasha 28:46

Pleurisy is when the two thin layers of tissue that separate your lungs from your chest, they get inflamed and swollen and they rub up against each other. They get rough. And um, when you breathe in or you breathe out, it is like sandpaper rubbing up against each other. And it feels like a very sharp stabbing pain in your chest every time you breathe. Today, treat it with antibiotics, but at the time, you know, it's the late 30s, the 40s. Yes, they have found penicillin at this point, is not in mass production.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yeah.

Tasha 29:22

And I when I read that, I was like, oh my gosh, what? Because my thought is we found penicillin, there's antibiotics.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

That's not even a hundred years ago.

Tasha 29:31

I know, isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_02 29:33

Yeah.

Tasha 29:33

You they had penicillin, but it was not mass produced yet. And they didn't start producing it in larger quantities actually until the war, World War II. They started, they were like, We've got to figure out how to mass produce this because we've got to get it out to our soldiers.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

Yeah, because they're in cold, cold climates.

Tasha 29:52

Yes, they were getting super sick, they were dying from infections, and they were like, We've got to figure out how to fix this that we can get this drug out so that we can save our soldiers. That's when they figured out how to mass produce it. But up until then, the only thing that they could do for pleurisy was surgery to drain the infection out of the lungs. So Beth had asthma, and on top of that, she had pleurisy. And she just kept getting these infections because hello, she also lives in New England, yeah, where it gets very, very cold. And when she was somewhere between the ages of 13 and 15, it got so bad that the doctors were like, we have to do a surgery. It the infection is just too bad. So they did the infection surgery to drain the infection out. And I'm not gonna go into what that encompasses, but it was very, it was a major surgery to do that. And she missed a ton of school between the first and second quarters of school. She missed two days of school. And then that third quarter of school that year, it was something like 57 days. Yeah, it was massive.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

It was like in the deep winter. Yes, everything is real cold.

Tasha 30:59

Yep. And her doctor said, You've got to get her out of the wet, cold New England winter. Like you've got to send her somewhere, you've got to move somewhere, you've got to do something. So when she was a sophomore in high school, her grades had suffered so much from missing so much school, she had just dropped out of school. Yeah, like she could not catch up. And she was going every winter to Florida to stay with family because she couldn't stay in New England. Yeah, her mom couldn't afford to move the six of them out of New England. Her dad was worthless. He wasn't, you know. Well, at the time he was dead for all intents and purposes.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

Yeah. Well, luckily they had family in Florida to send her to.

Tasha 31:41

Yes. And so she's in Florida. And then, you know, EB is in, I keep wanting to say Boston, but she's in Medford.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Yeah.

Tasha 31:48

And she's working in Boston. She's trying to provide for her girls there. And then she's also sending money to Florida to help take care of the needs that Beth has in Florida. By the time Cleo resurfaces, Beth is like, this would be a great opportunity. Like instead of going to Florida, I could go to California. I could spend some time with my dad. This would be a good idea. Like, you know, she's probably thinking, like, if I go with him, mom doesn't have to pay.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Yeah.

Tasha 32:16

Like I can give her a rest. Correct. Yeah. You know? So she asks him, can I please come with you to Florida or to California? And he says in 1942, November, he writes her and says, Look, here's $200. You can come. I've gotten set up in California. I'm in Vallejo, California.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Yeah.

Tasha 32:38

You can come here. I'm working at the Mare Island Navy shipping yard, but you're only allowed to come here if you will keep house for me. So this douchebag, who's not seen his children in 11 years, has not offered to take care of his children in 11 years, who stole $7,000 from his family and disappeared for 11 years. Who left his wife to raise their five children alone and then came back whenever Uncle Sam was knocking.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Yeah.

Tasha 33:03

He says, Hey, why don't you come? Oh, but also you have to be my housekeeper.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

Yeah, he's he has a stipulation for if you want to come out.

Tasha 33:11

He's the freaking father of the century. He's also still an alcoholic. He's an asshat. I am so un I I have nothing good to say about Cleo short at all.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Yeah.

Tasha 33:23

So yes, he moves to California. She moves in with her father. It's November. Within a month of moving to Vallejo, Clio has apparently lost his job because they're moving from Vallejo to Los Angeles by the end of 1940. Okay. There's no I-5, the interstate system has not been built, California yet. And there's a nationwide 35 mile per hour victory speed limit. Like they're trying to keep everybody slow.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Yeah.

Tasha 33:50

So that rubber won't run out very quickly.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

Oh, for the tires.

Tasha 33:53

Yes. Because they're like, we got to save the rubber.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

So is his shipping place in Viejos or was it in L.

Tasha 33:59

It was in the Yayho. So he's apparently lost that job.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

I don't know how you would have lost that because I mean they're building ships for the war, right? Thank you. Okay.

Tasha 34:08

But he's done something. He probably like didn't show up to work or showed up from I'm just I'm making up stories now.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

I know it's twisty, but he's a loser.

Tasha 34:17

He is. I have nothing good to say about him. So he he's lost his job. It takes them 13 hours to drive from Vallejo to LA. They move to LA. He gets this apartment in University Park. This apartment that they move into is literally three miles from empty lot that Beth's body will be found in in 1947. Wow. That's uh yes, there are so many. I I gotta go back to it, but Elisa Kelly says tank. There are no coincidences.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

There's negative tanks, though, in this.

Tasha 34:54

That's why there are so many creepy, like just so many.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

She would have never probably moved out there.

Tasha 35:02

I'm saying, yeah, so in LA, Leo is not happy, like he's not been happy with housekeeping. He wasn't happy in Vallejo, he's not happy in LA. She's been with him for a month.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Yeah.

Tasha 35:14

And then they get to LA and she meets guys and she starts going on some dates. And that pisses him right off.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Yeah.

Tasha 35:21

Like he just wanted her to stay home. He literally told newspaper reporters later that she would not stay home and clean house. And that made him mad. So he basically, right after New Year's Eve, he kicked his 18-year-old out into the streets of Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

Yeah, I want to I want to use words, but yes.

Tasha 35:39

I have already started using words, so you're able to join me. So 18 years old, has nowhere to live, is in Los Angeles. She applied and started working at Camp Cook in Santa Barbara County. Uh, and she got the job. So she was a post-exchange clerk, which basically just meant she rang up the soldiers whenever they bought like food or soap or newspapers or whatever. And when she got her job at the base, they did a full set of fingerprints, and that actually helped identify her body later when she died. At Camp Cook, she was featured in the Camp Cook Cutie or featured as the Camp Cook Cutie in the Cook Clarion on February 26th. So not even a month after starting. He was already making the bases paper. Um, they called her beauteous Boston Best, and they said that she one of their newest and nicest attractions, which I have so many problems with, but also I think it does say something about just how cheerful and friendly she was and liked her.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

That's a good way to put a positive spin to that.

Tasha 36:48

Yes, I had to put some sort of positivity to it because it was really pissing me off that they called her an attraction.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

I would like to say that that would not be an issue nowadays, but I don't know anymore.

Tasha 36:58

Right. I'm yeah. So her supervisor, though, who was a woman, had a son who was in the service and was off fighting overseas. And she said that Beth was a model employee. Yeah. She said that Beth was extremely kind to the soldiers, and that always really like struck a chord with her because she she knew that like if her son was there, that Beth would be upright and personable and kind to him. And so watching Beth be this way with these other soldiers meant a lot to her as a mother of a soldier.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Yeah.

Tasha 37:33

She also told investigators later that Beth never drank, she never smoked, and she never visited over-the-counters with boys. So she was like, All these stories that you're getting told about this wild, out of control girl, not even true.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Yeah.

Tasha 37:49

She said that she was one of the shyest girls who worked for her. So despite being shy though, Beth did make friends with a 26-year-old woman named Vera, who lived about an hour and a half away from the base in a Santa Barbara cottage that was three blocks from the beach. And I can't blame the girls. She quit her job and she went and lived with Vera at the cottage. Like, I mean, if I had to choose between working at a shop or living at the beach, uh yeah. I mean, so later that year, Vera invited her. She left her job, she went and moved in with Vera. Vera's husband was away. That's all we know. He was away. And this was, however, where they got the other set of fingerprints for Beth. It's also where we got that really horrible mug shot that made the rounds in the papers for Beth.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

Shown all the time everywhere.

Tasha 38:41

All the time. And it is so horrible. And every other picture you see of Beth is like a beautiful, smiling girl who's like showing her best self to the world. And then the moment that they show of her is either the bisected body in the lot or a mugshot. A mugshot.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

Which her mugshot is like similar to just my DMV shot. So like, I mean, if I'm getting pulled over by the police, I that's the face I'm gonna give you.

Tasha 39:06

I remember, I think it was it might have been we got it might have been your first, your first DMV photo with a beard, and you came home and you were like, This is my new license. And I was like, You look like the unibomber. You didn't smile, you didn't look like anything. I was like, What are you doing? Why aren't you smiling?

SPEAKER_02 39:25

And that's yes, that's that was my answer was the if the police need to pull me over, like I'm not gonna be smiling. And me, I'm like, yeah, I know you do your makeup up and your hair and all that stuff.

Tasha 39:36

I want them to know that I'm not a threat. Yeah, well, okay, so she moves in with Vera, whose husband is away. Yeah, but you can't keep the woman down. Yeah, and so on September 23rd, this is now 1943, Beth and Vera, they went out to dinner at Restaurante del Paseo with a group of camp cook soldiers that were in town, and the group was drinking. There's no confirmed report. Throw this out there that Beth was drinking.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

Uh-huh.

Tasha 40:06

But the group at large was drinking.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Yeah.

Tasha 40:09

There's speculation that someone at the restaurant noticed how young Beth was in comparison to the rest of the group and called the police. And why would they have done that? You may have asked. Because they profiled. Because they profiled. Four soldiers of the group returned back to the beach house cottage with Vera and Beth. And they were all inside the house talking, and um, the police arrived, and they uh may have had a focus at the time on underage girls because the FBI had um a really big push at the time on wayward girls and how they were destroying society. What? Yes, apparently the fall of society rested on the shoulders of just scandalous wayward girls. So, William Mann in his book, he tells us that a week before this event, there was an article that ran in the Santa Maria Times about the FBI's concerns about crimes against decency being made by underage girls. And you're like, okay, but she's 18. Like, how underage is that? Well, in 1943, California, the legal adult age was 21. So at the age of 18, you could go to war, but you could not go to dinner with soldiers from campus.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Yeah, yeah.

Tasha 41:28

Okay. So when the police arrived with woman Mary Unkeffer, I really hope I'm saying her name right because she is like the hero of this story. I love Mary Unkeffer. Mary is there, and the police ask for proof of age for every single person. Okay. Beth, of course, is the only one who is underage. So Beth, of course, is the only one who is taken into custody. This is where we get our infamous mug shot. That poor girl that is like scandalized five years later for looking like this fallen, lost young woman. Yeah. If you look at it under that light, she looks like a deer in the headlights. Like she looks so scared. Mary Unkeffer said that she was nicely dressed, that she was a young woman a long way from being a barfly. She described her as a nice girl that she liked intimately. And she commented on Beth's rose tattoo on her left thigh. So at 18, Beth already had her infant tattoo left thigh. But she she said that she was just a nice, clean-cut girl. And she kind of made it out like she was just in the wrong place. Yeah. At the wrong time. You know? So the probation board didn't know what to do with Beth because they couldn't send her to Clio's. Yeah. You know, he's on the complete opposite side of the country, is her home. Yeah. And so policewoman Uncuffer said, Listen, widow, I don't have any children. I have a room that she can stay in. Why don't you let her come stay at my house?

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Yeah.

Tasha 42:57

So Beth went and stayed at the policewoman's house until the courts decided what to do with her. She stayed with policewoman uncuffer for nine days.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

That's that's crazy.

Tasha 43:08

So after nine days, the courts decided that Beth needed to go home to Massachusetts. I would like to announce right now, you may have remembered that Cleo complained that Beth was very dirty, didn't keep house right, was just a big ol' mess, and that's why he kicked her out. Like she was playing in his rear, right? Mary Uncuffer said that she was fastidious, that she was extremely neat. Yeah. And we're gonna hear that from multiple people throughout the story. She is always listed as very tidy, very neat, very fastidious. So Cleo is just full of shit. Yeah, he is a horrible father. Yeah, that is what it comes down to. But Beth, the juvenile courts, because again, 18 is not an adult in 1943, California. It is a child. Yeah. Okay. They decide that she needs to return home to Massachusetts. So Mary Unkeffer goes to A local charity and says, Hey, uh, I need to send this girl home. And they said, Here's ten dollars for you to get her home. She goes home to Medford.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

Wow, traveling for 10 bucks.

Tasha 44:11

I know, right? Across the country. I mean, I don't know what that money is now, but that's still it's it's not ten dollars, I can tell you that. So it's October 1943. And what is October 1943 in in Massachusetts?

SPEAKER_02 44:23

Beginning of winter, almost. Almost the beginning of winter. Cold season.

Tasha 44:27

Heck yeah, it is coming. I mean, every time that I'm like, can Boston and it's October, you're like, no.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

No, amps are shutting down. We cannot. We cannot we have to be south of Pennsylvania by October.

Tasha 44:39

So Beth went home to her mom, but it's cold. It's New England winter. Yeah. So she quickly headed south to Florida um to stay with family. And that's what she did. She jumped back and forth from Massachusetts to Florida during the winter. She worked in shops when she was home in Massachusetts, and she waitressed when she was in Florida. And Phoebe continued to send money down to her when she was in Florida to help out with costs. The world was still at war. Yeah. So when she was at Florida or in Florida, Beth met servicemen who were getting ready to ship out from Florida to their different positions. And during that time, she met two who ended up holding very equally significant important roles in her life. Nice. The first was 31-year-old, and this is where our names get a little freaky. Joseph Gordon Fickling.

SPEAKER_02 45:31

I was waiting for Levitt, but I know, right?

Tasha 45:33

So Joseph Gordon Fickling, not Levitt. Uh, he goes by Gordon, an Army Air Force man, and they had a brief romance in September 1944 in Miami, before he shipped out. They continued to ride each other after he left. After he left, Beth went home to Medford for Thanksgiving. She spent it with her sisters and her mom, and then she returned to Florida. Okay. Gordon wrote her, and I quote, ocean, precious possession.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Very good.

Tasha 45:59

No, it's not. I want to vomit a little bit in my mouth. Uh, she was not possessed. And back in Miami in late December, we met Matthew Martin Gordon. What?

SPEAKER_02 46:10

Yeah, that's crazy.

Tasha 46:11

Your name is Matthew Martin.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Oh, now that now they all know my last name. Oh, great.

Tasha 46:16

His name was Matthew Martin. And Gordon, that's the other guy's name. Hey. So creepy.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

When I was when I was growing up in Colorado, I met a Matthew Martin with also the same middle name as me in the next town over from where I lived.

Tasha 46:30

That's weird.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

That is really weird.

Tasha 46:32

That's weird. Well, this Matthew Martin was born in Denver.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

What?

Tasha 46:36

Where were you born, Matthew?

SPEAKER_02 46:38

Uh, north of Denver.

Tasha 46:41

I was reading all of this and I was like, Because then what was the other thing? Oh, Betty's birthday is like just a few after yours or Beth's birthday.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Yeah.

Tasha 46:50

Um, yeah, it's there's just so many weird things that I'm like, what in the world? And then we've got like the Betty, the Betty thing that's gonna come in the next episode. And it's the names are weird, and okay.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

So very tank.

Tasha 47:04

Very tank. So back to it, Matthew Martin, not you, this Matthew Martin, who's a junior, by the way. He's a junior, which means there's another Matthew Martin. Okay. I just want to throw that out.

SPEAKER_02 47:14

I mean, those are two common names, Matthew and Martin, though.

Tasha 47:18

I know, but that combination, I'm interested and see how that combination being done by someone who is Matthew Martin on a podcast about it's just weird.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

He's Navy, right?

Tasha 47:27

No, he is he's mil uh Air Force. He's Army Air Force. Okay. He really likes her Air Force guys. So they're all from Colorado, but he was born in Denver, April 21st, 1990. He was raised in Pueblo, Colorado, which is just like a couple hours from where you were raised.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

Yeah, it's just south.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Yeah.

Tasha 47:42

Went to college in his hometown and he trained and earned his aviation license there. And he actually got recruited to fly in the Flying Tigers, which is like a really big ass deal. There are three mercenary fighter squadron that were positioned in Burma by FDR himself to defend the Republic of China against Japan. And that was like before anything else happened. Yeah. That that's a big deal.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Wow.

Tasha 48:07

So then when the war started, he joined the first fighter squadron, second air command. He was 21. He was extremely skilled and he rose through the ranks very, very quickly. He had one of those planes that had the uh shark painted on the front.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

Oh, those are cool. Yeah.

Tasha 48:23

So December 1944, he is in Miami, and they have exactly one date. Uno dado. And it's just horror. Not the right word.

SPEAKER_02 48:33

I mean, Uno's correct. I don't know about Dado.

Tasha 48:35

Dado is wrong. One date, and he gets sent back out. And as Beth is wont to do, they continue to write each other.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Yeah.

Tasha 48:43

After he leaves. And their writing just sticks up, right? And show and he tells Gordon about him. Like, listen, Gordon, there's another Gordon.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

Wow.

Tasha 48:52

Right. At least she's honest. I I mean she is. And she tells him, like, I'm writing with another guy. Yeah. Like we're writing. But she also ends up falling in love with Matthew. And she You can relate. I can relate. She tells Gordon, like, this is a thing. Yeah. She stops writing Gordon, only writes Matthew. Yeah. And he asks her to marry him. And he says, I have this ring for you, and I'm going to send it and it's going to come to you. And he's like, Yes, hell yes, let's get married. And so they're engaged. He's flying. It's this whole thing. There's one time where she's like, I really hope one day that I can fly, but I know that only you fly. Like she's very, very best. And so he writes a letter to his mother in like June or July.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

Okay.

Tasha 49:38

And he says, Beth really must love me, right? Because wrote me 27 letters in 11 days.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

Yeah. That is a lot of letters.

Tasha 49:46

27 letters in 11 days.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

That's more, that's more than two letters a day.

Tasha 49:51

What is she writing about?

SPEAKER_02 49:52

Yeah.

Tasha 49:52

Like waitress scene in Miami. What is she writing him about? So, well, I mean, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 49:58

When you talk about writing letters, I think of like um, what is that British show back in like that's based in like I didn't prejudice?

Tasha 50:05

No. That's all I can think of. Well, I guess I mean like this is what actually happened.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

No, I'm thinking of uh what is the the one with gr the Granthams and all that stuff.

Tasha 50:15

Uh oh, you're thinking of uh it's not British, it's uh but it is British British um Yes Lord Grantham in his yes, it's daughters.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

I can't even think of it. It's so popular.

Tasha 50:29

PBS! PBS, what is it?

SPEAKER_02 50:32

It's that Matthew, another Matthew, but you wreck the car and it's yeah, but that every time when you when you talk about the letters writing, I think of that too. And so yeah, really?

Tasha 50:40

Is there letter writing in there? There is letter writing. I don't remember any letter writing in that.

SPEAKER_02 50:44

Well, and until they got telephone.

Tasha 50:47

Which is funny because he the guy who made that also made my pride and prejudice. Because I am I need to be very clear. I am of the Pride and Prejudice.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

Yeah, not you're the Colin Firth Pride Pride and Prejudice. I just very authentic.

Tasha 51:01

Very long Pride and Prejudice, not the there's history in that. Okay, so now that we've clarified which is the correct Pride and Prejudice, anyways. Back to Beth, which is a Lizzie. Beth is an Elizabeth. Yeah. Lizzie.

SPEAKER_02 51:14

Ooh, that's a good, that's a good, yep.

Tasha 51:16

So weird.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

Wow.

Tasha 51:18

So many names. And is also a middle name.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

Downton Abbey. That was the name of it.

Tasha 51:23

That is the name of it. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 51:25

Well, anyways, letter writing letter writing.

Tasha 51:28

She wrote him 27 letters in 11 days. She must really love him. And then um, August 22nd.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

I had a biscotti this morning. That's part of her letter writing.

Tasha 51:40

Not in Italy, but also it's not a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 51:43

She probably didn't have biscotties in Florida.

Tasha 51:45

It's June, July. So she's not in Florida. She's back in Medford.

SPEAKER_02 51:49

Oh, okay.

Tasha 51:50

So it's more like I had a lobster roll.

SPEAKER_02 51:53

Did they have lobster rolls back then?

Tasha 51:55

I don't know, but damn, girl, if you didn't eat a lobster roll, she couldn't say she was sitting on the Green Monster because that wasn't built yet.

SPEAKER_02 52:02

For people to sit at. For people to sit at now.

Tasha 52:04

I don't remember what year that was.

SPEAKER_02 52:06

They probably had it, but they weren't seating uh people at the Green Monster until late.

Tasha 52:11

I would just like to point out that you are from Colorado and I am from Missouri.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Missouri.

Tasha 52:17

And we still try to say the Green Monster.

SPEAKER_02 52:20

Monster.

Tasha 52:21

Monster.

SPEAKER_02 52:22

Anyways, we love baseball.

Tasha 52:23

August 22nd, 1945. We love baseball, but we love the Red Sox more than we love baseball, which is like there's history in that.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

Okay. Sorry to very off the path.

Tasha 52:32

August 22nd, 1945. Ready?

SPEAKER_02 52:35

I'm ready.

Tasha 52:35

Bad story, so I really need you to pull it together.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

I'm sorry. Tighten up my serious days on. That's the serious business.

Tasha 52:43

On August 22nd, Beth received a cable from Matthew's mom.

SPEAKER_02 52:48

Oh no, that doesn't sound good.

Tasha 52:49

No, it's not. It read received word from War Department that Matt was killed in crash. Our deepest sympathy is with you. Pray it isn't true, but it was. Um, it was August 10th, was the day that he died. It was just weeks before Japan's final surrender in the war. Wow. Yeah. Uh Major Gordon was 26 years old. Heartbreaking. He was laid to rest at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. So she didn't get to go to his funeral. She was heartbroken. She um carried around a newspaper clipping about his death and a picture of the two of them for the rest of her life and her purse. And a lot of people think this is what drove her to leave New England, go back to California later. Um, so yeah, after that, um, in April of 46, she picked up correspondence again with Gordon and he was getting transferred. You know, the war's over. He's getting transferred to Long Beach, California, and they've been talking, and he suggests that she join him in California. She agrees, but she clarifies that she's joining him as good friends. Yeah. Quote unquote, good friends. He keeps alluding to wanting more, even though she keeps saying good friends.

SPEAKER_02 54:07

Yeah, that's a very guy thing.

Tasha 54:08

That's very douchey. Um, he encourages her to think about what she really wants from their relationship before she arrives, even though she's already said, quote unquote, good friends. Yeah. Okay. So Beth took her time getting from Medford, Massachusetts to California. He uh took a bus from Boston to Indianapolis. She stayed in Indianapolis for a couple weeks, then she went to uh Chicago, stayed there for a couple weeks, and then she arrived in Long Beach. Gordon met her at the bus depot in mid-July and he got her a room. They never stayed together, very like above board that way. But most hotels at the time only offered a five-day stay for anybody staying there because there was some major housing shortage. So a lot of the um building of housing developments had stopped because of the war.

SPEAKER_03 55:01

Oh, yeah.

Tasha 55:02

Everybody had left for the war, and now everybody had come back from the war, and now there's like nowhere to put anybody. Yeah. So people are staying in hotels and motels, but that also means that like everybody needs a place to stay.

SPEAKER_01 55:15

Yeah.

Tasha 55:15

So they've put this like five-day moratorium on stays. So after five days, most places are like, yeah, gotta go. Like, we gotta keep our overturn going. So everybody's got a place to stay.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

Yeah.

Tasha 55:26

So he gets there, but she has to leave and move to a new place on July 22nd. So he puts her up at the Washington apartment. He's staying on base. He's staying there. At the Washington apartments, they let her stay for almost two weeks, like a miracle. Wow. That's in Long Beach. She is doing what every other girl in her right mind in Long Beach is walking down the oceanfront shops, window shopping, and walking on down to the water.

SPEAKER_01 55:54

Yeah.

Tasha 55:54

You know, she would stop at the service drug pharmacy and she would grab a soda from the um soda fountain where the owner said that she was popular at the soda fountain counter in her two-piece with the men who came in. They'd buy her drinks, they'd buy her lunch. Gordon was getting very frustrated with her seeing other guys. One of those men was a Marine named Robert, who tried to convince her to move back to Boise, Idaho with him. Um, because he said that he was sure she could find a job if she moved back to Boise. But he said, She said, Listen, uh, Robert, I don't have my birth certificate. Like, not a problem. I will help you file a request with Massachusetts. Get your birth certificate. So he did that and then he left, went home. He stayed. But Gordon was not happy about that sailor. So he was like, Yeah, we gotta get you out of Long Beach. Where to next?

SPEAKER_01 56:49

Yeah.

Tasha 56:49

And she said, Well, I've always wanted to go to Los Angeles to become model. So on August 3rd, he checked her out of the Washington apartments and he rented her a private furnished room at the Brevort Hotel.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

Okay.

Tasha 57:02

It's in Hollywood. I'm telling you, it is out of our pay range.

SPEAKER_02 57:07

Out of our budget.

Tasha 57:08

It is out of our budget. It's on Lexington Avenue near the corner of mine. It's August 20th. They have registered as Lieutenant and Mrs. J.G. Bickling.

SPEAKER_02 57:19

I wonder who suggested that.

Tasha 57:21

I think they probably had to to like get her in the room. And then like he heads back to base and she stays at the room by herself.

SPEAKER_02 57:28

Yeah.

Tasha 57:29

But this was not any hotel. Very famous actors state at this point.

SPEAKER_02 57:32

Oh wow.

Tasha 57:33

So you know how we go to like Universal Studios and there's the brown derby where I drag you in so that we can get the discounted.

SPEAKER_02 57:43

Yes. Only because we're pass holders right now.

Tasha 57:47

We get in and we get the discounted merch.

SPEAKER_02 57:49

Yeah.

Tasha 57:50

Okay. Well, the actual brown derby is within walking distance of this hotel.

SPEAKER_02 57:54

Oh, it's an actual place.

Tasha 57:56

It's an actual place.

SPEAKER_02 57:57

Okay.

Tasha 57:57

Also, NBC, RKO, Columbia, Sardis, Earl Carroll's Theater. These are all walk for her. So she is flipping it. She's Loring Hollywood, right? Yeah. During this exploring, the wildest thing happened. She runs into an old friend from Massachusetts named Marjorie.

SPEAKER_02 58:15

Oh wow.

Tasha 58:16

Right?

SPEAKER_02 58:17

That's crazy.

Tasha 58:18

Right? So Marjorie's 20 years old, and he's we're gonna say divorced. And I don't know if it's an official divorce, but we're gonna call it divorce. She's separated at least. So Marjorie met her husband. He was a serviceman. They got married. Yeah. She moved to California and moved in with his parents. Okay. They had been together for two months.

SPEAKER_01 58:42

Okay.

Tasha 58:42

He was in the Navy. He goes off to war. He's gone. And then the war ends, and he comes back. And the very first thing he says when he walks in the door is Guess what? I signed up for the Navy Reserves. Eve immediately.

SPEAKER_01 58:56

Wow.

Tasha 58:57

So of their entire seven months of marriage, she has been with him for two months and has just signed away himself to go off again.

SPEAKER_01 59:06

Yeah.

Tasha 59:07

And she's like, WTF, this is not what I signed up for. Literally, just made me a single woman who lives with your parents for forever. So she packed up all of her stuff that night. So some people might have said, Why didn't you go home to Massachusetts? It's not her. She stayed in California. She got a job, she was working at a Hollywood department store, and that's where she ran into death.

SPEAKER_02 59:30

Wow, that's crazy.

Tasha 59:31

Right?

SPEAKER_02 59:31

Small world.

Tasha 59:32

Yes. So it's August 25th or 26th. And Beth is like, Oh, let me tell you. Remember that fiance I had? He died. Yeah. You know? Sad things have happened. Now I'm engaged to a new Air Force lieutenant. So Marjorie is in the hospital.

SPEAKER_02 59:48

Oh, really? I didn't even know about this.

Tasha 59:50

Yeah, I don't think Gordon knew about this either. Tells Marjorie where to stay. And also, my trunk has never arrived from Chicago. Yeah, that's it's never shown up. I don't even have my things. And I am just out on the street without my things. And Margie is like, I know what it's like to be a woman broken and alone in the city. You have got to come stay with me. Yeah. Come stay with me, girl. Girl. Beth accepted. It was like, I'm on board. Yeah. But first, you know, let me go back to my fancy dancy hotel that I'm staying at and close that out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:24

You know.

Tasha 1:00:24

So Beth goes back to the Beavort. Uh, I don't know what she knew. Like she had to have known something was coming because that's August 25th or 26th, whenever she met Marjorie at the department store. She didn't know she was gonna meet Marjorie. She didn't know Marjorie was in California. She her tells her this wild ass story that is not true. And then she goes back to the Be Vort. Gordon comes back to the Beavort on the 27th and then just out of nowhere, hecks her out of the hotel at 1110 PM.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:57

Oh, so he saw her at the department store just two days before. No, one or two days before.

Tasha 1:01:02

He Beth saw Marjorie at the department store a couple days before Gordon is set to come back from the base.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:08

Yeah.

Tasha 1:01:09

Okay. And she's like, Oh my gosh, it's so crazy seeing you here. Let me tell you this wild story about my life. I have nowhere to go.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:15

Oh, so she tells her this story like after she just meets back up with her.

Tasha 1:01:19

Yes. The first time that she sees her.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:21

Wow.

Tasha 1:01:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:22

Okay.

Tasha 1:01:22

And Margie is like, Beth, come stay with me. And Beth is like, Great, I would love to. Let me get my affairs in order. She goes back to the hotel. Who one or two nights later, Gordon shows up.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:34

Yeah.

Tasha 1:01:34

And we don't know what happens between her and Gordon, but he kicks her ass to the curb at 11 o'clock that night.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:40

Well, I mean, so yeah. I mean, maybe she finds a place to stay and they cordially take check him out.

Tasha 1:01:46

Find a place to stay. It was Margie's.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:48

I know. Yeah.

Tasha 1:01:49

11 o'clock at night, Matthew. 31-year-old finds his 20-year-old, not a legal adult good friend.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:58

I give you that.

Tasha 1:01:59

This is the second time that an adult male has left this girl out on the streets of LA. Okay, so I just saw the time. I think we're gonna have to like cut this into a second episode. So I I think I know where to where to break it. So Gordon left her okay on the streets of LA. He didn't know where she was going, but he did write her.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

Is that an assumption that he didn't know where she was?

Tasha 1:02:20

I don't think he knew where she was going. So that's an assumption. It is an assumption. He told her he needed to learn to be practical. Is that a quote? Wrote her that. Oh. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Um checked her out of the Brevort at 11 10 p.m. on August 27th. A 31-year-old man left a 20-year-old underage female on the chalet at 11 10 p.m. at night. Wow. Yeah. He did, however, I will give him this. Gave her some cash before he left.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:48

That's good of him.

Tasha 1:02:48

That is good of him. And he had been paying her way. Yeah. So, you know, can't say all bad things about Gordon. But he did leave her on the streets alone. And so she got in her, whatever she got in. I don't know, a cab, a bus, a walk.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:01

She doesn't, she doesn't have a car.

Tasha 1:03:02

She does not have a car, but she did somehow get to Margie's Hawthorne hotel room. Yeah. Because Margie had extended a warm welcome to her. However, the Hawthorne was shady AF. Um the Hawthorn was not a place where you wanted to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:18

Oh, she so she didn't downgrade. She downgraded.

Tasha 1:03:22

Downgraded. Let me tell you some stories about the Hawthorne. All right. Okay. People got robbed at the at the Hawthorne. Like real hardcore robbed at the Hawthorne. Um, there was a girl who had been arrested shortly before Beth arrived for stabbing her boyfriend to death.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:40

Oh, wow.

Tasha 1:03:41

The story that she told the police was that they had been play fighting and the tussle just got out of control. So murders, violent arguments, like we're arriving there all the time for like, hey, there's it started as a fight, but now I think someone is definitely dead in the next room, like that kind of thing. Wow. So yeah. And Margie already has a roommate who had no idea Beth was coming.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:05

Oh.

Tasha 1:04:06

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:07

Yeah, that's tension.

Tasha 1:04:08

That is a lot of tension.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:09

Day one tension.

Tasha 1:04:10

Day one. So we're gonna meet and and learn all about Lynn in part two. I'm gonna go ahead and and cut this off.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:18

Part two of part one.

Tasha 1:04:20

Part two of part one. Thank you for uh coming and and getting through this part one of part one with us. Yeah like, share, subscribe, comment. Or don't, but do. And uh we'll see you on part two of part one of Elizabeth Short and the Black Dahlia um next time, which may be this week, but may also be next week. I don't know. Depends on our our editing process, but regardless, we will still be wearing this because we're gonna cut and we're gonna start recording the video. Okay, we'll see you next time on Real Twisty. Bye bye.