The Black Dahlia’s Autopsy Report Is Missing; Investigators Want to Know Why

Nearly 80 years after the brutal murder of Elizabeth Short, the 22-year-old whose death became one of Los Angeles’ most infamous unsolved cases, a team reinvestigating the Black Dahlia mystery says it has stumbled across another mystery: Where is her autopsy report? Kimberly Lupini, producer of the upcoming docuseries Deconstructing Dahlia, told Los Angeles that her team recently had an active Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department cold-case investigator inquire with the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner about obtaining Short’s autopsy. The response was startling. “Elizabeth Short isn’t coming up basically in the archives,” Lupini said, describing an email the team received from the Medical Examiner’s office. “Their response is, ‘We cannot find the Elizabeth Short file.’” That doesn’t necessarily mean the report no longer exists. LAPD has long maintained records connected to the still-unsolved case and has declined to publicly release the complete autopsy. But Lupini says t