The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 3

53Hf''- LOS 3ttgClCSTimiCg3 3 lock ahlia's' Love Life Traced SLAIN GIRL'S MOTHER DUE HERE TODAY FROM EAST ea rch for Fi nd i sh Mu rd re Airline Pilot Found in South, Cagy on Girl's Avowals, Denies Betrothal Elizabeth Short hoped to go to Chicago to model, she wrote a friend, a former Army pilot, from San Diego a week before her maniacally mutilated body was found in Los An geles, police learned last night Joseph Gordon Fickling, honorably discharged Army Air Forces lieutenant whose letters to Elizabeth were found in the girl's effects yesterday, told detectives in Charlotte, N.C., where he is an airline pilot, that his last letter from the attractive brunette was dated Jan. 8, lice said. "She told me not to write her any more at San Diego and that she was going to Chicago," Lt. DeWeese of the Charlotte de her jet black-hair and her affinity for black garments. Fred L.

Smelser, manager of the hotel, reported seeing the girl with an Army lieutenant, whom he described as "very jealous." She also was seen with several sailors during her sojourn at the beach city. Actress Questioned Late yesterday homicide detectives questioned Anne Toth, 24-year-old film actress of 6024 Carlos who first met Miss Short last August when the "Black Dahlia" went to room at the same house. "She lived there about two months," said Miss Toth. "Then she went away for about three weeks I don't know where. When she returned, she said her girl friend, Marjorie Graham, had left for Boston but that she hadn't gone because she would rather die than, bear the cold of the East.

"Two or three weeks before Christmas she said she was going to Berkeley. (Miss Short's sister, Mrs. Virginia West, wife of Adrian West, engineer, resides in the northern city.) But instead she went to San Diego. Why, I don't know. "Just before Christmas Day she sent me a wire saying she was low on funds and asking me to send her $20.

She had been gone about three weeks when I received another wire saying she was coming back and stating that a letter would follow. 'That is the last I heard of -J (m Wlrechoto IIP) shots VICTIM Through friends ond former roommates, police ore checking on acquaintances of Elizabeth Short, 22, the "Black Dahlia," hoping to find clues to fiend slayer. Her Southland travels in recent months are being checked. VICTIM'S KINFQLK Mrs. Phoebe M.

Short, 46, extreme left, mother of slain girl, shown on way to friend's Dorothea, 24; Eleanor and Muriel, 18. Mrs. Short is scheduled to arrive here by plane today from Boston. Elizabeth's father Cleo yesterday was found living here. home in Medford, with three other daughter GIRLS WHO KNEW MURDERED BEAUTY AID POLICE 1 her.

The letter never came." Jr Miss Toth "said the dead girl had been friendly with several men during her stay at the Carlos Ave. house, but avoided introducing-them to her. lived in Hollywood From Nov. 13 to Dec. 5 Miss Short resided in an apartment at 1842 N.

Cherokee which she shared vith a number of young women. There she was known as a girl with a different boy friend every night. "She was always going out and she loved to prowl the boulevard," said Linda Rohr, 22, rouge-room worker at the Max Factor make-up studios. "She I Joseph Gordon Fickling tective bureau quoted Fickling as saying. In a conversation with Det.

Sgt. Harry Hansen of L03 Angeles, DeWeese related Fickling's denials that he had ever been engaged to the girl or had contemplated marriage with "her. Fickling said that he had met her in Southern California in 1944 going overseas, DeWeese informed Hansen. letters Found in Trunk The letters found here in a trunk which Elizabeth Short had ordered sent from the East indicated Fickling was wary of the girl's feeling for him and uncertain that a romance might be any more permanent than her interest in more than 20 other former boy friends, who were questioned for clues yesterday. "You say in your letter you want us to be good friends, but from your wire you seem to want more than that," said a letter from Fickling dated last April 24.

"Are you really sure just what you want? Why not pause and had pretty blue eyes but sometimes I think she overdid with make-up an inch thick. She On Wireohot HOSTESS Dorothy French said Elizabeth left San Diego Jan. 7 for Hollywood with unidentified red-haired boy. FRIEND Anne Toth, film bit player, said Elizabeth Short wired her for money from San Diego last month. BETH AND FRIEND Photograph found in Elizabeth Short's trunk here shows slain girl at night-club table with companion, identified as Cpl.

Guy Heath. Police yesterday questioned many of girl's former boy friends. DEPARTS Marjorie Graham returned East, but Elizabeth couldn't stand weather there, stayed here. REPORTS Linda Rohr said she lived in same apartment with Elizabeth, who "liked to prowl on the boulevard." consider just what you're com- ins out here to me would amount to? dyed, her brown hair black and then red again." Eight young women, each paying $1 a day rent, share the Hollywood apartment. Besides Miss Rohr oniy Sherryl May-lond, cocktail lounge employee, and Marion Schmidt, telephone operator, remain of the group who were Miss Short's roommates.

Others have moved and their double-decked bunks in the crowded double apartment have been taken over by newcomers. None could provide a positive clue as to the murderer. Recalls Elderly Man Miss Maylond recalled "a tall, sinister, elderly man" who approached her at the bar where she works a week ago and asked about Miss Short's whereabouts. Others remembered that the slain girl had spoken frequently "In your letter you mentioned a ring from Matt. You gave no further explanation.

I really don't understand. I wouldn't want to interfere." Mrs. Elvera French of Pacific Beach, with whom Elizabeth lived for several weeks this winter, said last night that the girl received a $100 money order ftom Fickling, then in North Carolina, in December. Father Located Here The trirl's 53-vear-old father. CIpo Short, located here last of a radio announcer named "Maurice" with a cultivated Brit ish accent The apartment manager, Mrs.

Juanita Ringo, said Miss Short eluded her by a side door when TV she asked for rent last Decem ber. Mrs. Ringo held a suitcase which Miss Short reclaimed a few days later; paying her rent Mrk I One roommate said Miss Short had asked her to accompany her to a Crescent Drive apartment in Beverly Hills, where a man would pay the rent. Another said she talked of moving to San Bernardino to work there at a military base. night at his apartment at 1020 S.

Kingsley Drive, told police he had not heard from his daughter for three years. He gave her $200 then, he serted, to come to Vallejo, where he was living, from Massachusetts. She came, he said, but spent all of her time "running around when she was supposed to be keeping house for me." "I made her leave," he added bluntly. "I didn't want anything to do with her or any of the rest of the family then," Sgt Hansen quoted Short as saying. "I was through." Employed as a refrigeration man, Short told police that he had- no information of recent enough date to be of any use and for that reason did not intend to be present at the inquest into the girl's death.

Girl's Friends Questioned Besides former boy friends, many former girl friends of Elizabeth Short were questioned yesterday in an attempt to fit together the dates, places and travels in her life before she was tortured, brutally slain and butchered. No clues appeared to point to a definite suspect as yet, although investigators anxiously sought a red-haired man with whom she supposedly left San Diego Jan. 7. Miss Short lived in San Diego Got Periodic Funds All agreed she worked nowhere in Los Angeles although she seemed to have periodic funds for rent, clothing and groceries. When she moved, she said she intended to live with her sister in Berkeley.

All this was at variance with the picture given of Miss Short by Mrs. Inez Keeling, former post exchange manager at Camp Cooke, near Santa Barbara, where Miss Short worked in 1943 as a clerk. The "Black Dahlia" never ran around with A DIRECT IMPORTATION TO MAGNUM'S THIS WONDERFUL NEW SHIPMENT, JUST RECEIVED the troops there, other employees recalled. "I was won over at once by her innocence," said Mrs. Keeling.

"She was one of the loveliest and most shy girls work Sweater aristocrats. these proud cashmeres prized for their kitten-soft texture, light warmth, luscious colors. Five styles of slipons and cardigans, fourth floor 14.93 to 25.00 ing for me. Cecil French, 23, of Bakers field, questioned after he was hnvA picked up for assertedly molest with Mrs. French and her daughter Dorothy, and they reported ing women at Sixth and Los Angeles was freed from City Jail and eliminated from she left there Jan.

7 for Hollywood with the unidentified red-haired man. Known as 'Black Dahlia the case. mm 5. kJ In Long Beach, where Miss Short lived at the Washington Hotel, 53 Linden from last July 12 to Aug. 3, it was disclosed that she was known as the "Black Dahlia," because of the fiowerlike arrangement of II Yi vu mm maim I.

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