The interviewee told the FBI agents that after being granted special leave for four days in Los Angeles he went downtown to 6th Street and Olive, arriving at that corner at approximately 2:00 P.M. wearing his full Army uniform with campaign ribbons and shoulder patches identifying his "outfit." He told agents that two women approached him, one of whom he identified from photographs as Elizabeth Short.
Noticing his shoulder patch, Elizabeth asked him whether he knew a certain soldier, whose name was stricken from the transcript. The interviewee replied that the two of them had served overseas together in the same outfit. Elizabeth told him that she and----had been "childhood sweethearts" in her hometown of Medford, Massachusetts. She added that she had heard he had reenlisted, but didn't know where he was stationed.
The interviewee told the agents he'd asked Elizabeth for a date that night and she'd agreed, introducing herself as "Betty Short." She had also introduced her girlfriend, but the interviewee could not recall her name. The interviewee and the two women walked the short distance to the Figueroa Hotel, where Elizabeth was registered, and the three of them stayed in the hotel lobby and talked for a while until Elizabeth excused herself and went upstairs. According to their memo, the sergeant told the FBI agents, "He is positive that the name that Betty was registered under at the hotel was [blacked out]."
The second woman remained in the lobby with the sergeant while Elizabeth was upstairs and informed him that she "had been married, was separated, then divorced," adding that she had been employed in Hollywood, though her employer's identity was stricken from the transcript. Elizabeth was currently unemployed, she said, and she had to loan her money from time to time. The sergeant then asked Elizabeth's friend if she knew where he could get a hotel room for the night. She told him she thought it would be extremely difficult but that "Elizabeth had twin beds in her room and might allow me to sleep there." The sergeant wanted her to "ask Betty if it would be agreeable with her if I stayed in her room." The girlfriend then left him in the lobby and went upstairs.
Both women rejoined the FBI's unidentified witness in the lobby of the hotel a little later in the afternoon and walked a short distance from the hotel, then caught a bus to Hollywood. Sergeant John Doe was seated next to Elizabeth's girlfriend, and Elizabeth sat in a vacant seat next to a Marine, with whom she immediately struck up a conversation. Noting this, the sergeant told the FBI agents that Elizabeth was "the type of girl who was very friendly and would talk to anyone." During the bus ride to Hollywood, he said, Elizabeth's girlfriend said she had asked her about his staying in her room, and Elizabeth had agreed he could. When the bus stopped in Hollywood, Elizabeth's girlfriend said goodnight to Elizabeth and the soldier and went off on her own.
Elizabeth and Sergeant Doe went to a live Tony Martin broadcast at the CBS radio studio and from there to Tom Breneman's restaurant at the corner of Hollywood and Vine. The interviewee told the FBI agents that when he and Elizabeth got there they saw a long line of people waiting for tables, but upon seeing Elizabeth the headwaiter immediately whisked the two of them inside and got them a table. The soldier could see, he told the FBI, that "Elizabeth was a regular customer, as all the waiters were on friendly terms with her and all recognized her."
During dinner Elizabeth talked more about her childhood sweetheart back in Medford, remarking that he "had been quite jealous when they were young, and had told me not to have any other boyfriends," which she found "quite amusing." The soldier mentioned to Elizabeth that he had known her friend only under combat conditions and "really did not know him very well."
Throughout their dinner, the soldier noticed that many of the patrons kept eyeing Elizabeth, noticing how well dressed she was, and constantly making whispered comments, as if "they recognized her as an actress from RKO or some other film studio." The two of them finished dinner and left the restaurant in the early-morning hours of September 21, 1946.
They caught a trolley back to downtown Los Angeles and got off about five blocks from the Figueroa. As they were walking, a black car drove up beside them. Inside, the soldier said, he could see five men, "all appearing dark complexioned, possibly all Mexicans." Three of these men jumped out of the car and yelled, "There she is!" The soldier said he turned to Elizabeth and suggested he "beat the men up." "No," Elizabeth told him, "it would be better to run" — which they did.
As they reached the hotel, Elizabeth asked the soldier "to wait outside for about 20 minutes" while she went to her room first, because, she said, "the hotel has strict regulations." The soldier waited about half an hour, then went up and knocked on the door. "She opened it wearing a flimsy negligee." He made love to Elizabeth that night. In fact, he stated he "had relations with her numerous times during the night," adding that "at no time during the night was Elizabeth in a passionate mood."
On the morning of September 21, Elizabeth's girlfriend returned to the hotel and the three of them agreed to double-date, the soldier promising to fix Elizabeth's girlfriend up with an Army buddy. They agreed to meet at the drugstore across the street from the Figueroa between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m., which they did. As they were leaving the drugstore, however, Elizabeth suggested that they play a little joke on-----: she and the soldier would write a postcard to---- saying they were "happily married and living in Hollywood." The soldier bought several postcards and stamps at the drugstore, wrote the messages, and addressed them to---- at his home address in Medford, Massachusetts.
The foursome went to what the soldier described as a "nearby beer garden." Then the soldier and his Army buddy, whose name was stricken from the record, suggested to Elizabeth and her friend that they head back to the hotel. But Elizabeth and her girlfriend turned them down, saying they "had dates with other men later that night." Elizabeth said that her date that evening was "with a man with a car" who was taking her to some specific place that he could not recall. After the soldier realized he would not have another date with Elizabeth, he asked if he could correspond with her, and see her again. He gave her his address, which, he told the FBI, "was noted down by her girlfriend in a small notebook."
After walking the girls back to the Figueroa, the two soldiers left them there at about 7:00 P.M. As Elizabeth started to enter the hotel the soldier noticed that she ran into someone she apparently knew and was having a heated argument with him: "a short, chunky, well-dressed man who appeared to be 40-45 years of age."
Sergeant Doe told the FBI agents that he never saw, heard from, or corresponded with Elizabeth after that day, returning to the East Coast the following day, September 22. When four months later he read about her murder in the newspaper he immediately wrote the LAPD about his date with Elizabeth. He said he "was fearful that my name would be discovered in the victim's girlfriend's address book, and that was the reason I contacted LAPD as soon as I heard about her murder." He never heard back from the police. But since he wasn't in California from January 9 through 15, he could not have been a suspect.
In closing the interview, the agents asked Sergeant Doe if he could recall any additional conversations he had had with Elizabeth during their thirty hours together. The soldier made these additional observations, which the agents included in their casefile memo:
Elizabeth had told him "she was afraid to be alone on the streets of Los Angeles at night." In the hotel lobby, he said, "Elizabeth had shown me a newspaper that recounted the number of murders and rapes that had occurred in Los Angeles over a short period." Elizabeth also told him she was going out with a man "she did not like very much, but she did not want to hurt his feelings by stopping relations." The soldier could not recall this man's name.