Right! Have you read Severed by John Gilmore about the killing of the Black Dahlia? http://www.amazon.com/Severed-Story-Black-Dahlia-Murder/dp/187892317X

It tells the story which I believe is the TRUE story of the Black Dahlia murder, as Gilmore presented a suspect who was one of the original questioned, but who had some strange details that are not found in James Ellroy's popular telling of the tale. In fact, so did the police chief of L.A. in the late 1970's believe Gilmore's collection of evidence, to the point he was waiting to draw up an arrest report when the guy killed himself by supposedly falling asleep drunk with a cigarette and a bottle of whiskey or something to that effect. He was connected if I'm remembering correctly to the "Bathtub Murders" of a rich young heiress about town in those days, a sort of scenester and trendsetter who was murdered in a bathtub. The evidence implied the murderer was interrupted by something that made him leave the scene. Elizabeth Short (the Black Dahlia) looked almost like the heiress killed in the Bathtub Murder. And considering this was 1947 and the concept and the term "serial killer" wasn't coined until about 1974 and wasn't really understood for what it was until about 1991 with a plain style telling of the film "The Silence of the Lambs" which didn't have the sensational and often absurd 1980's slasher fiction, but presented actual truths about what to watch out for that was palatable to the mass public for the first time in history. Considering this trend of ignorance about serial killers in the 1940's the connection to "similar looking victims" wasn't made. Today? That's common knowledge.

I think the guy was also tied somehow to the Cleveland Torso Killings which were Pre-War. The killings were extremely similar to the Dahlia murder. And within the same decade. The only differences? One (or two) murders took place in L.A. and the other murders in Ohio. One (or two) murders took place post-war and the other murders took place pre-war. WW2 had displaced many people in America upon returning home... especially if a guy was single and had nothing to tie him to his old small town - similar to what Frodo felt upon returning to the Shire --devoid of his innate life altering experiences ....so many moved to the cities. Displacement in pre-war took place with the Depression many migrating men looking for work riding the railroads until the War broke out and that led into the Post War plenty - the spoils of the Victory - and a push west with suburbia.

I think the Cleveland Torso Killer was the killer of the Black Dahlia and the Bathtub murderer. He was probably a military person who served in WW2 and started killing prior to going to war. After the war he found himself in Los Angeles. This makes me think that he served in the Pacific theater and was involved with the Navy. My grandfather was in the Pacific Theater and came home an alcoholic for a very long time. He saw beheadings and atrocities there, under the hot Pacific islands sun...and so did many others. But for a "Torso" killer? I'm sure it fed his need to revel in his perversity. Upon returning to domestic soil, he was in L.A. at the same time Hollywood was enjoying its second (or third) wave of "Classic" stardom and "starlets" --enter the Hollywood night club scene and the trendsetting urbanites who hung out in the "cool" spots in town...looking to be "discovered" (as still happens today on Sunset and Switzer at the Standard).

I recommend the book severed highly. It's a great account. Even going into how Short's severed body was likely in a curve structure such as a bathtub to rinse all the blood away...which goes back to the MO of the Bathtub Killer of the young socialite who looked like Elizabeth Short AKA the Black Dahlia. It's all very interesting...ANd like I said the police were actually moving to arrest the guy when he "died accidentally" in a fire, after confessing to Jon Gilmore who was a reporter at the time.