The case has been a matter of public fascination since 1947, when aspiring actress Elizabeth Short was found dead and dismembered in southern Los Angeles. The real culprit, she claimed, was Leslie Dillon, a man who police briefly considered the primary suspect but ultimately let go. Meanwhile, authorities found themselves sifting through copycat letters from the alleged killer, listening to bogus confessions and following up on other crimes that were potentially related, including the "Red Lipstick Murder" of February 1947, but inevitably found themselves back at square one. "It was pretty gruesome," Brian Carr, a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department who has long worked on the Dahlia case, later said. In order to identify the body, the Los Angeles Police Department pulled fingerprints off the corpse, which it then sent to the FBI through a device called a Soundphoto (a forerunner to the fax machine). A cement sack presumably used to transport the body exactly matched the type bought for use in contracting work at the house. The phony claims came from housewives, clergymen, soldiers, drunk ramblers, and, much later, pranksters who werent even alive when Short's life was brutally taken. Shorts prints actually appeared twice in the FBIs massive collection (more than 100 million were on file at the time). About an hour later, the FBI got a hit and was able to identify the victim as 22-year-old Elizabeth Short. According to the woman, the way Shorts body had been posed made her think that the corpse was a mannequin at first. Who killed the Black Dahlia and why? But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! In the year prior to her murder, Black Dahlia victim Elizabeth Short was treated by a Dr. Arthur McGinnis Faugh for a problem with her Bartholins gland. The press invented the name Black Dahlia by basing it on a movie released the year before, entitled The Blue Dahlia. More outlandishly, a childhood friend of Shorts wrote a book in 2000 pinning the crime on the celebrated actor-director Orson Welles. Police waited at the appointed time and place, but the author never showed. "Early on, I think for two months it was front-page news in all the local papers every day.". Her body was found, nude and posed, by a local female resident on January 15, 1947, in a vacant lot near Leimert Park, on the 3800 block of L.A.'s South Norton Avenue. Sarah Pruitt is a writer and editor based in seacoast New Hampshire. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. Trevor Strnad, founding lead vocalist of the melodic death metal band the Black Dahlia Murder, has died at the age of 41. The 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, also known as the Black Dahlia, is one of the oldest cold cases in Los Angeles. A phone call to Short's mother in Massachusetts brought more information about her background, while inquiries in nearby Long Beach uncovered the hook that became a staple of the front pages: The victim was known among acquaintances there as the "Black Dahlia," a nod to her taste for black dresses and the previous year's crime film The Blue Dahlia. Kirshner would receive critical acclaim for her performance. John Gregory Dunne's True Confessions (1977), loosely based on the murder, was followed by James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia (1987), the fictional but compelling accounts of these and other works bolstering some unflattering myths about Short's personal life. These plants are warm-weather perennials that grow from underground tubers. In the 40s, the Hodel family had been living in a house designed by Lloyd Wright, son of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. One month after Short's murder, another woman's body was discovered in Los Angelesand the circumstances mimicked the Black Dahlia's case in a few ways. And her stomach was full of feces, leading some to believe that shed been forced to eat them before she was killed. "[7] Fincher apparently wanted Julianna Margulies for Madeleine and Jennifer Connelly for Elizabeth. On January 15, 1947 (75 years ago today) a pedestrian found 22-year-old Elizabeth Short's body in Leimert Park's district of West Los Angeles. Anyway, now they may have figured it out. Since then, there have been more than 500 confessions, none of which led to anyone being charged. Elizabeth Short mug shots and fingerprint. Here are 10 things we know about the cold case, based on accounts from local newspapers, the FBI, and the son of a primary suspect. The 22-year-old aspiring actor was living in Los Angeles when her corpse was found. By what name was The Black Dahlia (2006) officially released in India in English? As time went on and the case went cold, many people assumed that the Black Dahlia murder was a date gone wrong, or that Short had run into a sinister stranger late at night while walking alone. To this day, no one knows who killed the. She soon realized that the body was a corpse and grabbed her daughter running for the . Eyewitness reports, though uncorroborated, claim that a woman who resembled Short was seen at the motel shortly before the murder. The Black Dahlia is a 2006 neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Brian De Palma, written by Josh Friedman, and starring Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, and Mia Kirshner. Listen above to the History Uncovered podcast, episode 11: The Black Dahlia, also available on. (AP Photo . Another name that's popular among Black Dahlia theorists is Leslie Dillon. "[21] J. Hoberman of The Village Voice stated that the film "rarely achieves the rhapsodic (let alone the delirious). On the morning of January 15, 1947, officers Frank Perkins and Will Fritzgerald responded within minutes after they received a call from a woman who had made a gruesome discovery in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. An official website of the United States government. Its transformation . - FBI Records onBlack Dahlia (Elizabeth Short), FBI.gov is an official site of the U.S. Department of Justice. To this day, no one knows who killed the 22-year-old who came to be known as the Black Dahlia, but that certainly hasnt stopped them from speculating. In episode 3 of the Netflix docuseries, "Down the Rabbit Hole," online sleuths identify a suspect in the possible murder of Lam, a death metal musician from Mexico known as Morbid. As for her identification, an editor at the Examiner suggested sending fingerprints via the paper's "Soundphoto" an early fax machine to an office in Washington, D.C., where they could be relayed to the FBI. Director Brian De Palma Writers Josh Friedman James Ellroy Smart had moved from . After over 70 years, the Black Dahlia murder case remains open. Two policemen see their personal and professional lives fall apart in the wake of the "Black Dahlia" Elizabeth Short murder investigation.Two policemen see their personal and professional lives fall apart in the wake of the "Black Dahlia" Elizabeth Short murder investigation.Two policemen see their personal and professional lives fall apart in the wake of the "Black Dahlia" Elizabeth Short murder investigation. A subsequent excavation of his property found no remains or weapons, only a knife, some farm tools and jewelry. Despite all the evidence pointing to him, Dillon was never charged with the crime. The film was screened at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival on August 30, 2006, and was released in the United States on September 15, 2006. There are a number of competing theories about who exactly coined Shorts infamous moniker. A new crop of writers soon emerged to reveal their personal connections to the case, starting with Janice Knowlton's largely panned Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer (1995). It's one of Hollywood's most notorious murder mysteries. Stan Winston Studios designed some of the film's practical effects, including the prop dummy of Kirshner's corpse that appears early in the film; the dummy prop was publicly auctioned in June 2022.[14]. Bucky confronts Madeleine and her father in their home and Madeleine's mother, Ramona, reveals that she killed Elizabeth. They gave Short the nickname, The Black Dahlia, due to her reported preference for wearing a lot of sheer black clothing. - FBI Records onBlack Dahlia (Elizabeth Short)- Story on Black Dahlia. Despite the extensive mutilation and cuts on the body, there wasnt a drop of blood at the scene, indicating that the young woman had been killed elsewhere. A 2017 book by English true-crime author Piu Eatwell entitledBlack Dahlia, Red Rose: The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of Americas Greatest Unsolved Murder pins the crime on a mortician's assistant-turned-bellboy named Leslie Dillon. Today, the Black Dahlia murder remains one of the oldest cold case files in L.A., as well as the city's most famous. She was given up for adoption to an African American family and raised in . Eatwell believes that the motel is where Elizabeth Short was murdered. The Gruesome Story Of The Black Dahlia Murder And Why The Case Remains Unsolved To This Day. Police tracked down approximately 75 men from the book, most of whom had only briefly met its owner, as well as Hansen, a successful nightclub owner. Sign in to rate and Watchlist for personalized recommendations. "The Black Dahlia" Unsolved Murder Crime Scene Photos From 1947 ULOOK2 Published 04/21/2014 in ouch Elizabeth Short, the victim of one of the nation's most infamous and unsolved crimes. Verminous is The Black Dahlia Murder 's most dynamic, rousing and emotional release to date, and it achieves this without compromising one iota of heaviness. The local newspapers, eager to exploit this uncommonly gruesome crime, began to spin wild stories about Short - and even gave her the nickname "Black Dahlia" due to her alleged fondness for black clothing. Menu. [12][13] At the time, it was the most expensive film ever shot in the country. Brandon Ellis: Lead Guitar, Backing Vocals. A Los Angeles Police Department flyer on Elizabeth Short. A naked female body, severed at the waist, was lying just off the sidewalk, the stark whiteness of her skin offset by jet-black hair and deformities like the gashes carved from each side of her mouth. RT25: Celebrating 25 years of Rotten Tomatoes. The first person who reported the grisly sight was a mother out for a morning walk with her child. Like Short, Frenchs murder was never solved. The mishap prompted Dillon's lawsuit against the city and the launch of a 1949 grand jury investigation, which examined the efforts of law enforcement and the still-inconclusive evidence. On a winter's day in January 1947, a housewife out for a walk with her child in Los Angeles stumbled upon the gruesomely mutilated body of a young woman. Born in July 1924, Elizabeth Short was raised in Medford, Massachusetts. arrived at the Examiner's office. [9] Rose McGowan auditioned for the part but was eventually cast in a minor role as Short's roommate.[10]. The women are the daughters of Fauna Hodel, who was born in 1951 in San Francisco, California, to a teenage Tamar Hodel. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. Two cops investigate a starlet's grisly murder in 1940s Los Angeles. British author Piu Eatwell believes that Mark Hansen, pictured here, orchestrated the murder of the Black Dahlia. But Hodelwho died in 1999gained more recent notoriety when his son, Steve Hodel, accused him of killing Short in the 2003 bestselling book Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story. Bersinger dashed to a neighbor's house to call the police, igniting a frenzy that engulfed several divisions of the LAPD and reporters from the city's relentlessly competitive newspapers, and laid the groundwork for what became one of the country's most famous unsolved cases. The mugshot of Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia. It was deemed that the murderer must have had medical training due to the clean nature of the cut. While most people consider the story of The Black Dahlia to be a quintessentially Los Angeles tale, it actually started way over in Boston. Hartnett had remained attached to the project all this time. Her body was found on January. Short died at age 22, her slain body found in a Los Angeles parking lot on Jan. 15, 1947. In addition to dissecting and mutilating her body, Short's killer had drained her corpse of blood and scrubbed it clean. A former Los Angeles police officer himself, Steve discovered photo albums he believes show the Black Dahlia, though others deny the women in the photos are Short, including her family. Confidential, and White Jazzwere international best sellers.His novel American Tabloid was Time magazine's Best Book (fiction) of 1995; his memoir, My Dark Places, was a Time Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book for 1996. Second, she had been arrested by the Santa Barbara police for underage drinking seven months later. Brian Eschbach: Rhythm Guitar, Backing Vocals. Lee and the man holding the rope fall over the railing to their deaths several floors below. And in the case of his high- energy thrillers, the joke is funny and damned entertaining. Eatwell claims he was released due to Mark Hansens ties to some of the cops at the LAPD. Manley later identified one of the victim's shoes and a purse found near the crime scene, but his alibis otherwise checked out, and he was cleared of wrongdoing. In an empty house below the Hollywoodland sign built by Emmett, Bucky recognizes the set that was used in Elizabeth's film. A. Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads, Name: Black Dahlia, Birth Year: 1924, Birth date: July 29, 1924, Birth State: Massachusetts, Birth City: Boston, Birth Country: United States. About The Black Dahlia Murder. But in recent years, a couple of intriguing and chilling theories have emerged. She was born on July 29, 1924, to Cleo A Short and his wife Phoebe May Sawyer. On January 15, 1947, 22-year-old aspiring actress Elizabeth Short was found brutally murdered in Los Angeles with her body cut in half and a ghastly smile carved into her face. The ensuing investigation was led by the L.A. Police Department. Getty ImagesA sheet covers the horrific mutilation of Elizabeth Shorts body. by Madeleine Noa January 11, 2010. Lee's obsession leads him to become erratic and abusive toward Kay. Paul Walker, Stephen Dorff, and Chris O'Donnell were considered for Bucky Bleichert. Wahlberg was forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with the planned filming of The Italian Job. The case has been a matter of public fascination since 1947, when aspiring actress Elizabeth Short was found dead and dismembered in southern Los Angeles. While fact-checking the book, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez requested official police files from the case and made an important discovery. Officers heard more than 60 confessions during the initial investigation, but none of them were considered legitimate. Her chance at stardom, however, would never come. And "The Black Dahlia" often steps over that line. Bucky goes to Kay's house and she invites him in and closes the door. Though. Sherilyn Fenn, who had been the front runner for the part in the late eighties, was also a contender. By her teens, she had set her sights on becoming an actress. TV Shows. This was a reference to the movie The Blue Dahlia, which was out at the time. Los Angeles' iconic homicide is not known by the moniker of the perpetrator, but the victimThe Black Dahlia. [24] Mick LaSalle wrote that Kirshner "makes a real impression of the Dahlia as a sad, lonely dreamer, a pathetic figure. By the time Hodel began his investigation, many of the police officers who originally worked on the case were already dead. Still, a few names stand out One of those names is George Hodel, a physician who ran a venereal disease clinic in Los Angeles in the 1940s. By the evening of January 16, authorities had matched the prints to those of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, who previously worked at an Army base in California and once been arrested for underage drinking. Eatwells theories have not been proven, as everyone involved with the original Black Dahlia murder case is most likely dead by now, and many official LAPD documents remain locked away in vaults. 3 of 39 4 of 39 Actress Elizabeth Short, known as Black Dahlia, is seen in this undated photo. When Shorts death became national news, police officers in Cleveland felt an awful sense of dj vu. Musician k.d. Since the body had already been washed clean, Los Angeles Police Department detectives concluded that she must have been killed elsewhere before being dumped in Leimert Park. The son summarized all his findings in a 2003 bestselling book entitledBlack Dahlia Avenger: The True Story. He was eventually let gothanks to a dirty cop, according to Eatwellbut some of the detectives investigating the case never forgot him. In 1991, a woman named Janice Knowlton came forward claiming that her late father, George Knowlton, had killed Short and two other women. Short's torso had been cut in half. Oct 23, 2022. Elizabeth ("The Black Dahlia") Short's Murder Still Unsolved On January 15, 1947 a woman walking on the sidewalk in the 3800 block of Norton St., in Liemert Park, Los Angeles caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a department store mannequin lying in the weeds on the side of the street; the top half separated from the lower half. On the 15th of January 1947 at around 10 am, a mother was walking her 3-year-old daughter when she stumbled across a mannequin, except, to her horror, it was the mutilated body of Elizabeth Short, posthumously known as Black Dahlia. Her body was found on January 15, 1947, in a vacant lot near Leimert Park. The jury disseminated without indicting a suspect, and by the following year, the Short mystery was cast adrift into the netherworld of cold cases. The FBI also had her mugshot from her arrest, which they provided to the press. But a closer look revealed the true horror of the Black Dahlia crime scene. The next morning, Bucky finds money hidden in Lee and Kay's bathroom. In January 1947, a horrific tragedy occurred: At the age of 22, Short was brutally murdered in Los Angeles, her body cut in half and severely mutilated. Strnad's bandmates confirmed his death Wednesday on social media. Kay reveals that she had been DeWitt's girlfriend and that he abused her. Both detectives become obsessed with solving the case. Bucky starts putting the pieces together and remembers props in another movie matched the set in Elizabeth's pornographic film. However, he carefully reconstructed conversations these officers had about the case. The gruesome death of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short confounded Los Angeles investigators in the late 1940s and remained a topic of intrigue in the decades that followed. 1,674 IMDb 5.6 2 h 1 min 2006. Matt Terhune/Splash NewsAutopsy photos of Elizabeth Short show the terrifying smile that was carved into her face. And a handwriting expert deemed the lettering on a taunting note to the press a close, but ultimately inconclusive, match to the elder Hodel's writing. Steve claims his fathers handwriting matches strange letters the police received, supposedly from the killer. Eatwell alleges that Hansen was infatuated with Short and came onto her, though she rebuffed his advances. Kate Beckinsale, Fairuza Balk (who had previously been considered for the Dahlia) and Rachel Bilson were also considered for the part. Hodel went through newspaper archives and witness interviews from the case, and even filed a Freedom of Information Act to obtain FBI files on the Black Dahlia murder. In February 2013, the team conducted an extensive search of the doctor's home, where Buster had previously detected the scent of human decomposition in several areas of the basement, according to reports. The 22-year-old Short had been sliced in two at the waist and completely drained of blood. In recent years, Steve Hodel, a retired LAPD detective, grew suspicious after finding pictures of a woman he believed to be Short among the possessions of his late father, Dr. George Hill Hodel, who died in 1999. It was a box-office flop and met with largely negative critical reaction, effectively ousting De Palma from the Hollywood studio system (his subsequent films have been filmed and financed overseas). Afterward, the alleged killer sent a note made of letters cut and pasted from magazines to the Examiner that said, Have changed my mind. How was "The Black Dahlia" received by critics and audiences. At a young age, Short developed a strong affinity for cinema. [16], The film opened on September 15, 2006 in 2,226 theaters and came in second place over its opening weekend (behind fellow newcomer Gridiron Gang), with $10 million. (It should be noted, the woman not heard before the scream. Designed in a distinctive Mayan block style, the buildingknown as Sowden House, is now considered a Hollywood landmark. On the morning of January 15, 1947, Betty Bersinger was pushing her 3-year-old daughter Anne in a stroller down the sidewalk, heading to a shoe repair shop. Seemingly making headway in the case, investigators apprehended married salesman Robert "Red" Manley, who met Short in San Diego and dropped her off at L.A.'s Biltmore Hotel on January 9, the date of her last sighting. And the medical examiner found fecal matter in her stomach, suggesting she had been forced to eat it before being killed. This handwritten note read, Here it is. The Black Dahlia | Unsolved Mysteries Wiki | Fandom in: California, 1947, Murder, and 2 more The Black Dahlia Edit Elizabeth Short Real Name: Elizabeth Short Nicknames: None (Elizabeth Short was never known as "The Black Dahlia;" this was a name the press called her after her murder.) Hodels father had been a doctor who attended medical school when this procedure was being taught in the 1930s. George Hodel, the man Steve Hodel believes is responsible for killing the Black Dahlia. Why the switch from blue to black? Get a taxi. On January 15, 1947, Elizabeth Shorts dead body was found in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Leimert Park. The murder was a particularly brutal one. The Black Dahlia Murder formed in 2000, naming themselves after the 1947 unsolved murder of aspiring actor Elizabeth Short and citing acts such as Metallica, Pantera and Judas Priest as influences. An autopsy found that the victim had perished from repeated blows to the face and the subsequent blood loss, the torso's bisection and other mutilations, at least, coming after she was already dead. Elizabeth Short's murder became known as the Black Dahlia. He was on the scene at Norton Avenue on the morning of January 15, 1947 and remained on the case until he retired in 1968. Bucky finds DeWitt in the atrium of a building before he is gunned down by Lee, then sees a man garrote Lee before a second figure steps out and slits Lee's throat. How Did Chris Farley Die? Madeleine, who comes from a prominent family, tells Bucky that she was 'very close' with Elizabeth but asks him to keep her name out of the papers in exchange for sexual favors. Gwen Stefani was considered for the part of Kay Lake. Over time, plants will form multiple branching shoots covered with deeply lobed leaves. She Was Number Three. He came to believe that his father used his medical expertise to kill and mutilate Shortand other victimsbefore fleeing to Asia in 1950. On the morning of January 15, 1947, he opened the door to one of his cabins and found the room covered in blood and fecal matter. In another cabin, he discovered that someone had left a bundle of womens clothes wrapped up in brown paper, which was also stained with blood. However, members of the media did receive a few clues. She made a decision not to look at the original autopsy photos and to focus on Short as she had been in life. Wikimedia CommonsA police bulletin seeking information on Elizabeth Shorts activities prior to the murder describes her as very attractive with bad lower teeth and fingernails chewed to quick.. Lee rescued Kay, stole DeWitt's money, and put DeWitt behind bars. Short's fingerprints had been entered into the system twice before: once when she applied to work in the commissary of a U.S. Army base and once when she was arrested in Santa Barbara, California on September 23, 1943 for underage drinking. An article in the San Bernardino Sun detailed a more recent investigation of the case that was conducted by retired police sergeant Paul Dostie, author Steve Hodel and a police dog named Buster with a keen sense of smellspecifically that of decomposing flesh, which he was trained to detect. Her head had been bludgeoned. Another discovery that lent itself to Eatwells theory was a crime scene found at a local motel. And its possible that the truth is still out there, just waiting for the right investigation to finally bring it to light. Max Lavelle: Bass. Additionally, Hodel searched his fathers archives at UCLA, finding a folder full of receipts for contracting work on his childhood home. [8] Fincher originally envisioned "a five-hour, $80-million mini-series with movie stars. The FBI cites a rumor that Short wore lots of black clothing, but some reports point to her dark hair color instead. Then, he supposedly called on Leslie Dillon to take care of her. Hansen, it seemed, knew Dillon was capable of murder but didnt realize just how deranged he really was. Sadly, she had no known acting jobs and her death became her one claim to fame. Based on early suspicions that the murderer may have had skills in dissection because the body was so cleanly cut, agents were also asked to check out a group of students at the University of Southern California Medical School. They thought there was something fishy. 0. Fellow researcher Larry Harnisch poked holes in his assessments, however, and Hodels credibility took a hit when he also claimed that his dad was the Zodiac Killer. Hodel's link to the Black Dahlia case was almost forgotten to criminal history until his son, Steve, began investigating his past after his father's death. She had moved to Los Angeles just six months before her death and worked as a waitress. She had been mutilated and severed at the waist, with the two halves a foot apart. In 2004, Stephen R. Kay, the head deputy for L.A. Countys district attorney office, said that if George Hodel was still alive he would have enough to indict him for the Elizabeth Short murder. He says he has found details from dozens of other murders that could possibly be connected to his father, implicating him not only as the Black Dahlia murderer but also as a deranged serial killer. And then her prints turned up a second time since she had been arrested by the Santa Barbara Police Department for underage drinking just seven months after shed applied to the job. Known as the Black Dahlia, Short was a star-struck young woman whose body was found completely severed at the waist in January 1947. De Palma's staged, theatrical style has always felt like an in-joke: an expressive homage (or sometimes a slap in the face) to the conventions of cinema. In 2017, British author Piu Eatwell announced that she had finally solved the decades-old case, and published her findings in a book called Black Dahlia, Red Rose: The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of Americas Greatest Unsolved Murder. In that folder, there was a receipt dated a few days before the murder for a large bag of concrete, the same size, and brand as a concrete bag found near Elizabeth Shorts body. Fairuza Balk and Tiffani Thiessen were considered for Elizabeth Short. Neither led to a murder charge. Elizabeth Short (July 29, 1924 - c. January 14-15, 1947), known posthumously as the Black Dahlia, was an American woman found murdered in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles on January 15, 1947. We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right,.css-47aoac{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#A00000;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-47aoac:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}contact us! Who Is The Black Dahlia (1975)Staring Brooke Adams & Lucie ArnazDramatization of an actual homicide investigation. Though some sources quote a lower number, the Los Angeles Times puts the tally of false confessions in Short's case at more than 500. The mystery of Shorts murder lived on in popular culture thanks to James Ellroys noir novel The Black Dahlia, later made into a movie. The Mystery Novelist Who Committed a Real Murder, Boston Marathon Bombings Survivors, 10 Years Later, A Complete Timeline of Adnan Syeds Trial, Release, The Siege at Waco, In the Words of Who Was There, Ted Bundy Maybe Murdered Dozens More than We Knew, How Waco Inspired Timothy McVeighs OKC Bombing. Two at the age of 41 over the railing to their deaths several floors below and 's! 13 ] at the house sliced in two at the time, it seemed, knew was! 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