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

A few months after her death, I started drawing pictures of Bette—first as Snow White, smiling, with two
birds perched on her shoulder, then standing on a hill near a tree, much like the big elm that once stood in the Common of our New England hometown. As I developed into a professional artist, Bette became my main subject—couched in mythological terms—Antigone, Eurydice, Medea. Finally in 1987, forty years after Bette’s death, as one final gesture of catharsis I organized an exhibition titled In Memoriam—work by artists based on the death of someone close. A triptych, The Martyrdom of Elizabeth Short became my contribution to the exhibit. The three panels, each six-and-a-half feet by three feet, are hand-rubbed linocuts. The first panel, The Red Ribbon, represents Bette alive and innocent, the red ribbon symbolizing her fate. The second panel, Urban Landscape, depicts a grim tableau—Bette’s cast-off body at the edge of a vacant field. The third panel, The Blue Flame, represents the search for the truth and the healing power once the truth is revealed.

— Mary Pacios