On January 15, 1947, a mother was taking her 3-year-old daughter for a walk in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Leimert Park, which at the time was mostly undeveloped.

In one of the vacant lots, just feet from the sidewalk, the mother saw what she initially believed to be a mannequin, according to the FBI. Upon closer inspection, however, it was discovered that it was the body of a woman who had been completely severed at the waist. She had been drained of blood and her skin was a sickly white color.

“I glanced to my right, and saw this very dead, white body,” the woman said in a 1997 interview, according to the Los Angeles Times. “My goodness … it was so white. It didn’t … look like anything more than perhaps an artificial model. It was so white and separated in the middle. I noticed the dark hair and this white, white form.”

[The most infamous murders are of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goodman, but everyone knows who committed them: O.J. Simpson, even though he was acquitted. This is, of course, the Black Dahlia murder, which has been the source of endless speculation now for 76 years and counting. There is a presumed main suspect named George Hodel, as Schow reports, but no firm and convincing evidence that excludes other possibilities. Schow has a fascinating report on it here. By the way, don’t bother with the film ‘The Black Dahlia,’ which is overwrought, weird, and a waste of time despite a great cast. — Ed]