Esotouric offers Black Dahlia crime bus tour

Black Dahlia Crime Tour Highlights The Victim of L.A.'s Iconic Unsolved Murder

WHAT: Esotouric's Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour
WHEN: Saturday March 29, 1pm-5pm, departing from Lincoln Heights Metro Station
COST: $55/person (15% off for KCRW members)
INFO: http://www.esotouric.com, 323-223-2767

Since January 1947, one iconic murder mystery has lingered unsolved at the forefront of the American imagination, with dozens of books, films, TV shows and websites dedicated to solving the slaying of Beth Short, a girl from Medford, Mass. who came to Hollywood hoping to make it, and ended up cut in two in a vacant lot. Suspects in the Black Dahlia murder have included famous men like Norman Chandler and Orson Welles, crazed lesbians, twisted drifters and more than one writer's father, but still the mystery abides.
When Esotouric launched their offbeat L.A. crime tours in spring 2007, The Real Black Dahlia was an immediate hit, and has remained their most popular tour. But rather than rest on their laurels, Esotouric has reinvented the Real Black Dahlia tour for the spring 2008 season. The original tour offered a comparison of the various whodunnit theories that swirl around this notorious unsolved mutilation murder, but the victim sometimes got lost in all the theorizing.
Now The Real Black Dahlia Mach 2 dedicates itself to revealing who victim Elizabeth Short really was by exploring her life in Los Angeles from mid 1946 to her January 1947 murder through examination of the police investigation and news coverage. The various theories are up for discussion during the onboard Q&A sections, and the hosts share their own idea of who the killer might have been, but the focus is firmly on the 22-year-old woman whose death launched dozens of books, films and internet message boards.
Along the way, passengers will explore the social history of postwar Los Angeles and its lively downtown scene and learn the role the city played in Short's mysterious death.
The tour begins in Downtown Los Angeles, where Beth Short checked her bags at the Greyhound Station before visiting the Biltmore Hotel lobby, which popular mythology holds was the last place she was seen alive. It really wasn't, but passengers will tour the beautifully restored hotel before heading south, to the low rent Olive Street bar where she met her murderer.
The Downtown portion of the tour includes the Examiner newspaper offices,where the crime became myth, and the Figueroa Hotel, where Short stayed in happier times. The bus then heads west towards Leimert Park and the vacant lot where Short's bisected body was discovered on January 15, 1947. Also in this neighborhood, passengers visit the site of another unsolved 1947 kidnap-murder and the home of a very likely and little known suspect in the crime.
The tour includes a cop-approved snack stop for Krispy Kreme donuts near the body dump site.
The tour includes a special presentation from cosmetics historian Joan Renner exploring Beth Short's unusual proto-goth make up, so different from the popular girl next store look of 1947, and a key to understanding her psychology.
Passengers on this eye-opening and informative tour will leave with a new understanding of the Black Dahlia case and the 1940s in Los Angeles. It is highly recommended for natives and newcomers, crime and history buffs and anyone who likes to seek out the unexpected.

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour schedule (new tours starred):
*Sat Mar 8- Raymond Chandler's Bay City
Sun Mar 9- Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's Los Angeles
Sat Mar 15- Vroman's Bookstore - Pasadena Confidential
Sat Mar 29 - The Real Black Dahlia
Sat April 5 ­ Amoeba Music - Where the Action Was rock history tour
Sat April 12 - Wild Wild West Side
*Sat April 26 - Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: The Many Downtowns
Sat April 26 - Main Street Vice (90 minute tour, $30)
Sat May 3 - Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles: In A Lonely Place
Sat May 10 - Blood & Dumplings
*Sat May 17- Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: Route 66
Sat June 14- Vroman's - The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain's SoCal Nightmare
Sat Aug 9- Vroman's Bookstore - Charles Bukowki's LA
Sat Oct 11- Vroman's Bookstore - Raymond Chandler's LA

For more info on Esotouric, visit http://www.esotouric.com