ZODIAC SERIAL KILLER CASE CRACKED? LINKED TO DISMEMBERED ACTRESS?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Guaranteed human. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Has the Zodiac serial killer case finally been cracked? And is it linked? to a starlet, a dismembered actress. Repeat, dismembered. Her limbs not attached to her body, severed just above the waist and positioned for a mom and her child out on a walk to find half her body. Are they connected? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.
What is the connection between the Zodiac Killer and the Black Dahlia case?
I want to thank you for being with us.
An active serial killer terrorizes Northern California, launching a violent rampage and identifying himself through the media as the Zodiac Killer, spreading fear across the state.
The Zodiac Killer's case, very complex. But what we need to know, bottom line, he was a mad dog killer that killed seemingly at random. The MO, modus operandi, method of operation, is very, very different between the known Zodiac murders, a slew of dead bodies typically found on lover's lanes where couples were alone together, Very, very different from the murder, the intricately planned, meticulously carried out murder of a young Hollywood starlet. Listen.
It was headlines for 30 days straight.
They had a thousand law enforcement officers working on the case. This is Los Angeles' most notorious unsolved murder.
It was Elizabeth Short. She was nude. She had been bisected at the waist. Bottom half of her body was posed obscenely.
Her body bore torture marks, and her mouth was cut ear to ear into a hideous grin.
I started looking at the crime itself. And what I discovered, to my surprise, was that the killer was a surgeon, not a meat cutter, not a butcher, a skilled professional surgeon.
Well, that's a lot of content, a lot of information to digest. That's from our friends at 48 Hours and AT Entertainment tonight. Okay, let's take that one thing at a time. When you're trying a case, you do not want to mix up your evidence in front of that jury. A thousand L.E. law enforcement on the case of Elizabeth Short. They said nude bisected at the waist. The bottom half of her body posed obscenely. I guess that means with her legs apart. Her body had torture marks. Her mouth cut ear to ear in a hideous grin, a la the Joker in the Batman series. It's called a Glasgow smile. That is when the victim's face has been cut from the edges of the mouth up toward the ears to make a permanent smile. Who would do that?
And then we hear Steve Hodel, a retired LAPD, state that the killer of Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. Black Dahlia, was not a meat cutter, not a butcher, but a skilled professional surgeon. Joining me in All-Star Panel, what does Elizabeth Short's murder and bisection have to do with the Zodiac Killer years later? Are they one in the same? Straight out to Joseph Scott Morgan joining us, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon and host of a hit podcast series, Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. First of all, you and I have seen a fair many dismemberment, bisection. That's a whole nother can of worms, Joseph Scott Morgan. Bisection, explain it.
Yeah, we're not cutting in the vertical plane. We're cutting in the horizontal plane, which means across the body. If you just think about where your umbilicus is, your navel cut inferior to that area all the way across the body. The interesting thing about the incision, that particular incision, Nancy, is that the margins are what are referred to. And this is the reason Hodel is making this comment. The margins are very neat and clean. So this gives you an indication that this wasn't a standard butchery type of event. This is something that would have taken time. It would have taken a certain amount of skill. And also going back to dismemberment, Nancy, these cases that we've seen both in practice and in covering in the news, it requires privacy.
It requires a location that you can go to where no one else is going to see you. And it takes time. So you have to have time with the body alone. And the body has been prepped here. We have to think about that. There were reports where they were talking about that her body had actually been cleaned, Nancy, washed down, those sorts of things.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:44
2
What is the connection between the Zodiac Killer and the Black Dahlia case?
0:44–9:40
3
How did Elizabeth Short's murder unfold and what are the details?
9:40–17:27
4
What forensic evidence links the Zodiac Killer to Elizabeth Short?
17:27–33:02
5
What role does AI play in solving cold cases like the Zodiac Killer?
33:02–59:06
6
How does the M.O. of the Zodiac Killer differ from that of Elizabeth Short's murderer?
59:06–1:05:42
Speakers
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