January 1947. LA. Elizabeth Short, aka The Black Dahlia, a small-town beauty queen, is found murdered on waste ground. She has been badly mutilated. Her body bisected. John Gilmore, who has spent thirty-five years investigating the case, tells the story of Short's tragically futile life and reveals the tangled inside story of the police investigation, which never resulted in a conviction. But most shocking of all, he recounts the startling circumstances and gruesome details of the killer's indirect confessions to him and the circumstances of his death. 'Only with author John Gilmore's Severed do we get previously undisclosed information from police files, never-before-published photos and a look at the probable murderer--and why he escaped prosecution.' - Larry Flynt