Over the years, whenever a body has been found sawed in half, Karina bells have gone off. In 1999, Boston detectives flew down to Hollywood, Florida, when the body of 34-year-old prostitute Delia Lorna Mendez was found inside a trash bin, severed in two. Nothing. When two boys found a suitcase full of human bones behind a Weymouth bar that same year, they thought of Karina again. Nothing. When police arrested a man in 2002 for picking up a woman at a bar in Quincy, stabbing her and cutting off her fingers before killing her, eyebrows were raised with Karina in mind. Still nothing.
Men and dogs dressed as Superman? Rockers who dabble in S&M and magick? As wild as the list of potential suspects was in Karina’s case, Dahlia has our nanny beat again. Orson Welles. Bugsy Siegel. Woody Guthrie. A well-known surgeon who lived a block from where Dahlia’s body was left. Norman Chandler, publisher of the LA Times. Two people have published books — one a New York Times bestseller — outing their own fathers as the killer. More than 22 suspects have been seriously bandied about, none of them charged with the crime.
Most people agree that the last place Dahlia was seen alive was in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel in downtown LA. You can still go there today. Order the Black Dahlia martini at the hotel bar. Then you can visit the space where her body was discarded at South Norton and 39th Street in Crenshaw. The spot sits in a residential neighborhood now. You can find it on star maps.
You won’t find the place where Karina met her end on any trolley tour maps. The dumpster in the alley where she was found, near the Mass Pike just off Boylston Street, is still there. The smell of fabric softener fills the space, seeping out of a vent from a laundry room in the adjacent apartment building. The site is unremarkable, save for the sign posted above the dumpster. You’d think nothing of it if you didn’t know what had been left there ten years ago. But armed with that knowledge, the sign reads like a sarcastic jab at those who could never solve the crime, as if it were placed there by the killer himself, taunting the police the same way Dahlia’s killer did 49 years earlier. NO DUMPING it reads in big letters, POLICE TAKE NOTICE.
You stuck around, so I’ll give you the response to that Jeopardy clue.
“What is au pair?”
Contestant A.J. Monaco, a law student from Newark, earned $1600 for getting that right on January 9, 2004.
Earlier in the same episode, Monaco got another question right.
The category was called “Ah, Sweet Mister ‘E’ ”
“George Jetson might like this author of L.A. Confidential,” said Alex Trebek.
“Who is James Ellroy?” A.J. responded.
I’ll take “Some Real Eerie Shit” for 400, Alex.