Join Esotouric for Black Dahlia Murder bus tour

Black Dahlia Murder Bus Tour Kicks Off Esotouric's Noir November Discounts

WHAT: Esotouric's Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour

WHEN: Saturday November 1, 12pm-4pm

WHERE: Departing from The Millennium Biltmore Hotel, 5th & Olive, L.A.
FYI: Despite the myths, the Biltmore was the actually second-to-last place Beth Short was seen alive; this tour goes to the real last spot as well.

COST: $58/person (15% off for KCRW or KPCC members, or save $39 on any three of five Esotouric Noir November Saturday tours with a $135 pass)

INFO: http://www.esotouric.com, 323-223-2767

This November, the eclectic bus adventure company Esotouric offers a special Noir November discount package. For just $135‹a savings of $39 (or $44 if they pick the Blood & Dumplings tour‹passengers can ride three our of five dark and outrageous November tours of their choice: THE REAL BLACK DAHLIA (11/1), THE BIRTH OF NOIR (11/8), WILD WILD WEST SIDE(11/15), HOTEL HORRORS & MAIN STREET VICE (11/22) or BLOOD & DUMPLINGS(11/29).

Noir November debuts with THE REAL BLACK DAHLIA, Esotouric's most popular true crime tour. Since January 1947, one iconic murder mystery has lingered unsolved at the forefront of the American imagination, with dozens of books, films and websites dedicated to solving the slaying of Beth Short, the Massachusetts girl 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 L.A. Times publisher Norman Chandler and Orson Welles, crazed lesbians, twisted drifters and more than one writer's father, but still the mystery abides.

The Real Black Dahlia tour 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 idea of who the killer might have been, but the focus is firmly on the 22-year-old woman whose death continues to fascinate. 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 at the Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, where Beth Short went after checking her bags at the Greyhound Terminal. 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 formerly 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 Dr. Walter Bayley, who has emerged in recent years as the most compelling suspect, with his personal ties to Beth Short's family and the crime scene, and the surgical skill needed to bisect the body. The tour includes a cop-approved snack stop for Krispy Kreme donuts near the body dump site.

Also featured: 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 what it was like to be a single woman in 1940s Los Angeles. It is highly recommended for natives and newcomers, crime and history buffs and anyone who likes to seek out the unexpected, and is the ideal kickoff for the five tour Noir November series.

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour schedule (Noir November tours starred):
Sat Oct 25 ­ Halloween Horrors with Crimebo the Clown
*Sat Nov 1- Noir November: The Real Black Dahlia
*Sat Nov 8- Noir November: The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain's SoCal Nightmare
Thurs Nov 13 ­The Hippodrome & Hazard's Pavilion (Downtown LA Art Walk Shuttles, free)
*Sat Nov 15- Noir November: Wild Wild West Side
*Sat Nov 22- Noir November: Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice
*Sat Nov 29- Noir November: Blood & Dumplings
Sat Dec 6- Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's LA
Thurs Dec 11- The Hippodrome & Hazard's Pavilion (Downtown LA Art Walk Shuttles, free)
Sat Dec 13- Pasadena Confidential

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

For more on the Dr. Walter Bayley theory, visit Larry Harnisch's "Heaven is Here" website http://www.lmharnisch.com/