It's the case that has haunted Hollywood since 1947, but now, in a new book, true crime author Piu Eatwell reveals who she believes is the killer of the Black Dahlia.  The victim was twenty-two-year-old aspiring actress Elizabeth Short whose life paints a painfully familiar picture of the small-town girl with big dreams moving to LA to become a star.  Tragically, she became famous for the worst possible reasons as her gruesome and violent death was sensationalized by press the world over.  Piu joins Sean Rocks on Arena to discuss the details.

"This area of Leimert Park was just basically a wide expanse with a few lots marked out for new houses.  This housewife was walking down the street and saw a cloud of flies buzzing around something and she kind of craned her neck to see closer.  She suddenly saw what she thought was a shop mannequin and so she came closer.  She was pushing her pram along and she suddenly realised, oh my God, I'm not sure that that is a mannequin.  I think it may be a body."

The housewife sounded the alarm and a swarm of police and photographers descended on the crime scene, one even asking for a picture of himself next to the body.  "That's the kind of scene we're talking about," says Piu, one of patriarchy, violence and corruption.

"It was a classic case of turning the victim into the person who was guilty and saying this is what happens to women who are vamps and temptresses rather than, well actually, what about this seedy world of Hollywood, the casting couch, the pimps, the crooks, the cops and so on, what about them?…  She became the poster child for what happens to dangerous women, for women who leave their home and it became a reason to preach to people to stay at home."

This book critiques the post-war Hollywood scene, flooded with hopeful starlets and those who would take advantage of them, as well as naming a killer.  While no one was ever convicted of the murder, over five hundred individuals came forward to confess!

"It's completely extraordinary isn't it!  I think it's because the case was so huge.  The first edition of the Los Angeles Examiner that ran on the morning of the murder sold more copies than the copy that covered the bombing of Pearl Harbour and so you have all these basic saddos, losers, who want a piece of the limelight.  You have in fact more than 500 people who came forth and confessed, including several women."

In a story that truly is and continues to be stranger than fiction, Piu's book covers the investigation of an "evil lesbian" angle, hero of the hour and editor-extraordinaire Aggie Underwood's role in proceedings and a meeting with Piu's suspected killer's daughter, subsequently and creepily also named Elizabeth.

Click here to listen to the full interview.