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.”
Her face was slashed from the corners of her mouth to her ears, with additional cuts on her thigh and breasts that had sliced away part of her flesh. Her lower body was about a foot away from her upper body, with her legs spread and her intestines tucked beneath her buttocks. Her arms were bent at the elbows and positioned above her head. Police found a…
