the-penny-dreadfuls: Elizabeth Short pictured with her fiance Matthew “Matt” Gordon during a night o
the-penny-dreadfuls: Elizabeth Short pictured with her fiance Matthew “Matt” Gordon during a night out. Elizabeth’s shared days with Matt were some of the happiest of her life. Her family remembered how she would positively beam whenever someone spoke his name. With gleaming eyes, she would gush about her beau, unabashedly so, to anyone willing to listen. The young couple exchanged numerous, passionate love letters during their courtship. Elizabeth kept them together, fastened with a pretty red ribbon, and placed them in a trunk which she referred to as her “Hope Chest”. Before being deployed to India, Matt, a decorated pilot, promised the couple would get married when he returned home. They planned for an October wedding, and then move to Colorado to begin their life together.It would never be so. Matt was killed in action on August 10, 1945, leaving Elizabeth’s heart shattered. She read their love letters over and over again, desperately clutching what her life once was and possibilities that now would never be. This photograph, along with their love letters were placed back into the “Hope Chest” As she prepared her fateful move to California, Elizabeth shipped it out from Chicago to the Greyhound Express station in L.A. but because an unpaid bill, her belongings remained unclaimed in a warehouse.Less than two years after Matthew’s passing, Elizabeth would also be dead. In a macabre twist of date, her grisly murder in January 1947 caught the attention of every newspaper, instantly skyrocketing the aspiring actress to levels of fame she once daydreamed. In this infamy Elizabeth Short became known as the Black Dahlia. A journalist covering the case managed to track down the trunk and inform the police of its whereabouts. It remained untouched until investigators could safely collect it for evidence. The picture of Elizabeth and Matt and their love letters were still inside. -- source link