The nonfiction book reveals the connection between the brutal 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, and the death of heiress Leila Welsh six years earlier
On Jan. 9, 1947, 22 year old Elizabeth Short disappeared from the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, where she was supposed to meet her sister. Nearly a week later, the Boston transplant was found dead in an undeveloped lot in Leimert Park.
Short, who would later be known as the Black Dahlia, was found mutilated, with her body completely drained of blood. The gruesome nature of her death, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding it, would become one of the city’s most infamous unsolved murders.
But in a new book, Short’s death is connected with that of another young woman, who was murdered years earlier.
PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at Sisters in Death: The Black Dahlia, the Prairie Heiress, and Their Hunter, a new book by Emmy-nominated producer Eli Frankel. The book hits shelves from Citadel Press later this fall.
In Sisters in Death, Frankel connects the shots between Short’s murder with the murder of Lelia Welsh. An heiress living in Kansas City, Welsh was found murdered in her bedroom, showing signs of “unspeakable trauma,” per the book’s official synopsis.
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Drawing on new documents, interviews with surviving participants of the case and the victims’ personal artifacts, Frankel reveals a never-before-shared key to the Black Dahlia murder — and unmasks the criminal at the core of the case.
Frankel tells PEOPLE that he spent over five years trying to solve the Black Dahlia case.
“Like many true crime fans, I had been obsessed with the 1947 Black Dahlia case for many years. As, arguably, the most famous unsolved single murder in U.S. history, It felt like everything that could be written about the subject had been written,” Frankel says.
“But there was one crucial suspect who has been overlooked by researchers and writers. He appeared early in the investigation and continued to be vigorously pursued by Los Angeles detectives until the case went cold in the early 1950’s,” he continues.
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Frankel was intrigued when he learned about Leila Walsh’s story — a case that the Los Angeles Police Department originally tried to investigate. Both women knew the suspected killer.
“I decided to dive in and find out everything I could about this mysterious man,” Frankel says. “What I uncovered was nothing less than shocking — a pattern of violence, stalking and various criminal acts including other possible murders.”
Sisters in Death: The Black Dahlia, the Prairie Heiress, and Their Hunter will be published on Oct. 28 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.
