police that he was in a bar drawing sketches and she was seated nearby. After she said she liked what James had sketched, he revealed to police, the two of them became friends. 'She modeled for me, and I made several pictures of her,' he explained. He corroborated his statements by giving police the names of the current owners of his artwork. 'One, a large oil painting, I later turned over to a man named Frank Armand, who lived in Artesia.' The second one he identified as 'a sketch of Elizabeth, which I turned over to a Mrs. Hazel Milman, Star Route 1, Box 24, Rodeo Grounds, in the Santa Monica, Palisades district.' James then told police that his contact with Elizabeth ended abruptly three months later in November 1944 after he was arrested in Tucson, Arizona, for violation of the Mann Act, while he was using the alias of Charles Smith. The press later established that the federal charges against him, involving the 'transporting of girls across a state line for immoral purposes,' did not involve and were totally unrelated to the Elizabeth Short homicide.
As a result of those charges James was convicted and served two years in Leavenworth prison. After his release in 1946, he ran into Elizabeth in Hollywood that November, when he bought her several pieces of luggage. James quickly ran afoul of the law again, because the check he wrote for the luggage bounced and he was arrested. At the time of his interview with reporters in January 1947 he was awaiting sentencing on those charges.
Mrs. Matt Gordon Sr.
The press interviewed Mrs. Gordon, fiance Matt Gordon Jr.'s mother, over the phone at her home in Pueblo, Colorado, after a telegram she'd sent to Elizabeth was found in Elizabeth's luggage stored in the downtown Los Angeles bus depot. Mrs. Gordon denied rumors that Elizabeth and her son were ever actually married, but confirmed that her son had first met Elizabeth in Miami, Florida, in 1944, where he was stationed after his return from China. She also confirmed that the two did correspond after he left the United States for India, adding that she was proud that 'my son had been awarded the Air Medal with fifteen oak clusters, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the silver and bronze stars.'
Upon being notified by the War Department that Matt had been killed in an airplane crash in India in August of 1945, Mrs. Gordon sent a telegram to Elizabeth: 'Received word War Department Matt killed in crash. Our deepest sympathy is with you. Letter follows. Pray it isn't true. Love.' In her telephone interview with reporters four days after Elizabeth's body was discovered, she said, 'My heart goes out in sympathy to that girl and to her mother.'
Anne Toth
Elizabeth Short's former roommate Anne Toth was a twenty-four-year-old film actress and extra who had had bit parts in several movies. She'd briefly shared lodging with Elizabeth at the private residence of Mark Hansen, part owner of the Florentine Gardens, a popular nightclub in Hollywood, which featured what newspapers called a 'Girlie Revue.' It was common practice for Hansen to rent rooms at his Hollywood residence at 6024 Carlos Avenue, Toth said, to 'girls trying to break into the business.'
Toth first met Elizabeth in July or August of 1946, when Elizabeth moved in. 'She lived at the house for several months, then went away for about three weeks, then came back.' Toth did not know where Elizabeth had gone during that three-week period, but indicated that 'Elizabeth's girlfriend, Marjorie Graham, had left for
Boston, but that Elizabeth said she hadn't gone with her and she would rather die than bear the cold of the East.'
'About three weeks before Christmas,' Toth said to the press, 'Elizabeth told me she was going to go to Berkeley, to visit her sister, but instead went to San Diego. I don't know why she went there.' Toth received a telegram from Elizabeth during the Christmas holidays saying that she was low on funds. 'She was asking me for twenty dollars,' Toth said. 'Three weeks later I got a second telegram saying she was coming back and a letter would follow.' That was Elizabeth's last communication; Toth never received the promised letter.
'She was friendly with several men while she stayed at the house on Carlos Avenue with me,' Toth said. 'I remember three of the men. One was an Air Force officer from Texas, another a radio announcer named Maurice, and the third was a language teacher. He was about thirty-five years old, 5'-6', medium build, and he drove a black Ford or Chevrolet. I remember he had promised to set Betty up in an apartment in Beverly Hills if she left our place on Carlos.' Toth added, 'We used to think the world of that kid. She was always well behaved and sweet.'
'Sergeant John Doe' (unidentified U.S. Army man)
Elizabeth Short's FBI file, obtained under a FOIA request, contains a memo dated March 27, 1947, of a lengthy interview by special agents of the FBI's Pittsburgh office with a soldier in the U.S. Army whose name, rank, and home base were blacked out, as were the names of other identified individuals. The interview, which provides important information about Elizabeth's background and movements, and insights into her overall character, describes a twenty-four-hour relationship between the soldier and Elizabeth in downtown Los Angeles on September 20-21, 1946.
The interviewee told the FBI agents that after being granted special leave for four days in Los Angeles he went downtown to 6th Street and Olive, arriving at that corner at approximately 2:00 P.M. wearing his full Army uniform with campaign ribbons and shoulder patches identifying his 'outfit.' He told agents that two women approached him, one of whom he identified from photographs as Elizabeth Short.
Noticing his shoulder patch, Elizabeth asked him whether he knew a certain soldier, whose name was stricken from the transcript. The interviewee replied that the two of them had served overseas together in the same outfit. Elizabeth told him that she and----had been 'childhood sweethearts' in her hometown of Medford, Massachusetts. She added that she had heard he had reenlisted, but didn't know where he was stationed.
The interviewee told the agents he'd asked Elizabeth for a date that night and she'd agreed, introducing herself as 'Betty Short.' She had also introduced her girlfriend, but the interviewee could not recall her name. The interviewee and the two women walked the short distance to the Figueroa Hotel, where Elizabeth was registered, and the three of them stayed in the hotel lobby and talked for a while until Elizabeth excused herself and went upstairs. According to their memo, the sergeant told the FBI agents, 'He is positive that the name that Betty was registered under at the hotel was [blacked out].'
The second woman remained in the lobby with the sergeant while Elizabeth was upstairs and informed him that she 'had been married, was separated, then divorced,' adding that she had been employed in Hollywood, though her employer's identity was stricken from the transcript. Elizabeth was currently unemployed, she said, and she had to loan her money from time to time. The sergeant then asked Elizabeth's friend if she knew where he could get a hotel room for the night. She told him she thought it would be extremely difficult but that 'Elizabeth had twin beds in her room and might allow me to sleep there.' The sergeant wanted her to 'ask Betty if it would be agreeable with her if I stayed in her room.' The girlfriend then left him in the lobby and went upstairs.
Both women rejoined the FBI's unidentified witness in the lobby of the hotel a little later in the afternoon and walked a short distance from the hotel, then caught a bus to Hollywood. Sergeant John Doe was seated next to Elizabeth's girlfriend, and Elizabeth sat in a vacant seat next to a Marine, with whom she immediately struck up a conversation. Noting this, the sergeant told the FBI agents that Elizabeth was 'the type of girl who was very friendly and would talk to anyone.' During the bus ride to Hollywood, he said, Elizabeth's girlfriend said she had asked her about his staying in her room, and Elizabeth had agreed he could. When the bus stopped in Hollywood, Elizabeth's
