American Monsters: Earl Leonard Nelson
Photos and information about The Napa State Asylum (AKA Castle Dracul West) https://www.napavalleymarketplace.com/post/2018/12/28/napa-state-hospital-the-early-years
Sources:
https://winnipegpolicemuseum.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/the-stangler.pdf https://murderpedia.org/male.N/n/nelson-earle.htm
Primary sourced news coverage from the time of Nelson's killing spree: Specifically, scanned articles available through a membership at www.newspapers.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.
Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
Speaker 1: Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and
Speaker 1: descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and
Speaker 1: we recommend you stop listening. Now. True crime with a
Speaker 1: dash of the paranormal, the garish, the strange in the
Speaker 1: darkly comic. A podcast that's about more than just murder.
Speaker 1: It's my very own pocket dimension, home to a curated
Speaker 1: collection of bizarre and compelling stories, the unsolved, the unsettling,
Speaker 1: and the unbelievable. I cover it all just so long
Speaker 1: as it's kind of murdery. Hello everyone, thank you for
Speaker 1: joining me. I am Zevan Odelberg, and this is kind
Speaker 1: of murdery, and boy, have I gotten an American monster
Speaker 1: for you today. This is the terrible tale of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century's most prolific serial killer, a man who defined
Speaker 1: the label serial killer long before the label itself was invented.
Speaker 1: A murderer whose visceral and dastardly killings left a pile
Speaker 1: of corpses unrivaled by any serial killer in recorded history.
Speaker 1: It was not until the arrival of modern American horror
Speaker 1: household names like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, the
Speaker 1: today's grim Grendel would see his confirmed kill count surpassed.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking of a psychotic, homicidal maniac known to history
Speaker 1: as the Dark Strangler, or even more evocatively, the Gorilla Strangler.
Speaker 1: Newspapers dubbed him the Gorilla Strangler because of his swarthy complexion,
Speaker 1: wide forehead, protruding lips, and massive hands. His name was
Speaker 1: Earl Nelson, and he would inspire a film by the
Speaker 1: inventor of modern horror cinema, Alfred Hitchcock. But more on
Speaker 1: that later. Kind of Murderies American Monsters Earl Nelson starts now.
Speaker 1: The first scene of our true crime gothic horror story
Speaker 1: takes place in the year nineteen twenty three in the
Speaker 1: most appropriate of settings. The NAPA State Hospital, known in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty three is the NAPA State Asylum for the
Speaker 1: criminally insane. From the moment it opened its doors in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five until it was dynamited in nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 1: inmates escaping from the NAPA Asylum was an ongoing chronic problem,
Speaker 1: or perhaps an entertaining diversion, depending on your moral compass
Speaker 1: and your feeling about real life batman supervillains. This is
Speaker 1: not the first appearance on Kind Ofmurdery for the NAPA
Speaker 1: State Hospital. I know it features prominently in The Horrible
Speaker 1: Truth About Hans, but I'm fairly certain that if you
Speaker 1: peruse Kindomurdary's back catalog, you'll discover that escaping from both
Speaker 1: the NAPA and the Mendocino Asylum is an ongoing trope
Speaker 1: in our show. Where Tonight's story begins in nineteen twenty three,
Speaker 1: the asylum sat on two hundred acres, and the asylum
Speaker 1: itself was a massive red brick Gothic castle that would
Speaker 1: seem more aptly described as the ancestral seat of Vlad
Speaker 1: the Impaler more so than a home for the criminally insane,
Speaker 1: although given the impressive resume of Count Dracula, both during
Speaker 1: his life and in the centuries following death, that may
Speaker 1: be a distinction without a difference. This self same hospital
Speaker 1: still operates today, although with a much smaller modern structure
Speaker 1: and much less land. The majority of the land has
Speaker 1: subsequently become two public parks, as for Dracula's Castle, a
Speaker 1: Kirkbride building. That's krkbr Ide. Google Kirkbride if you're curious
Speaker 1: about the significance of the designation. I can only afford
Speaker 1: so many digressions. So yes, Dracula's NAPA Fortress was dynamited
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty nine because it had been declared a
Speaker 1: fire trap and too dangerous to house bedridden patients. Well
Speaker 1: that was part of it anyway, that, along with the
Speaker 1: general push toward modernity and post war American government, the
Speaker 1: dynamiting of the original NAPA Asylum is a historical and
Speaker 1: architectural tragedy all its own. All post links to photos
Speaker 1: of NAPA Asylum's Kirkbride building in the show notes and
Speaker 1: on social media, but suffice to say it's a structure
Speaker 1: of truly gobsmacking proportions, vaguely reminiscent of a red brick Versailles,
Speaker 1: with added conical torrets, and all the spiritual charm of
Speaker 1: a crematorium. I couldn't find an official listing of the
Speaker 1: square footage, but in a book entitled San Francisco in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, Patricia Pestonary writes that after the original
Speaker 1: NAPA State Hospital was demolished, salvagers took away ten million bricks,
Speaker 1: one million border feet of lumber, two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: square feet of one inch thick hardwood flooring. Now I'm
Speaker 1: neither a math genius nor a contractor, but I'm fairly
Speaker 1: certain that if you remove two hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: square feet of flooring from a building, well, then that
Speaker 1: building was two hundred and fifty thousand square feet, which
Speaker 1: is frickin huge. That means it's four times the size
Speaker 1: of the Hearst Castle. But remember it wasn't destroyed until
Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine, and that means that in the first
Speaker 1: of our murdery vignettes back in nineteen twenty three, Castle
Speaker 1: Drachcool West, the Napa State Asylum still stood and housed
Speaker 1: many of California's most dangerous, criminally insane patients and some
Speaker 1: less dangerous ones too. On Tuesday, November fifth, nineteen twenty three,
Speaker 1: the Petaluma Argus Courier reported that the town of Napa
Speaker 1: was on high alert and housewives all the flutter because
Speaker 1: three inmates had escaped from the Napa Asylum. The escapees
Speaker 1: were ed a day. Criminally insane, transferred from Folsom Prison
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty two. C. H. Reynolds from Calusa, California,
Speaker 1: committed in nineteen twenty one, and An E. Farrell from
Speaker 1: Mayor Island in Vallejo. The Argus Courier warns its readers
Speaker 1: that Dai and Reynolds are considered dangerous and that they
Speaker 1: had picked a lock from inside the quote department where
Speaker 1: the most extreme cases are kept. But as for E. Farrell,
Speaker 1: a former Navy serviceman, he's described only as a quote
Speaker 1: Mayor Island sailor, leaving the Argus Courier readers to no
Speaker 1: doubt assume that of the three men, seamen Farrell must
Speaker 1: be the least dangerous. Now, what's that Sam Jackson quote
Speaker 1: about making assumptions? Everyone knows when you make an assumption,
Speaker 1: you make an ass out of you annuption. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the one. And this was certainly one of those assumptions.
Speaker 1: Because while Dally and Reynolds are lost to the sands
Speaker 1: of time, E Ferrell aka Virgil Wilson aka Adrian Harris
Speaker 1: aka mister Woodcut and who knows how many other names,
Speaker 1: would in fact become notoriously hideously legendary. His name was
Speaker 1: Earl Nelson, and nearly one hundred years after his first
Speaker 1: recorded kill, only seven American serial killers have more confirmed
Speaker 1: victims than human monster Earl Nelson, the guerrilla Strangler, a
Speaker 1: man who so horribly fascinated North America that he inspired
Speaker 1: the nineteen forty three Alfred Hitchcock film Shadow of a Doubt.
Speaker 1: In fact, only five Americans have a higher possible body
Speaker 1: count than Nelson, and two of those are pop culture
Speaker 1: monolists Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, who have unfortunately
Speaker 1: become something akin to the Starbucks and Walmart of soulless murderers.
Speaker 1: All of this is a long winded way of saying
Speaker 1: that the navyman E Ferrell was most assuredly not the
Speaker 1: least dangerous of the three escapees. Whoever was penning local
Speaker 1: news for the Petaluma Argus Courier one hundred years ago
Speaker 1: ought to be ashamed of themselves. But then perhaps the
Speaker 1: wolf and sailor's clothing had not yet removed his sheep's
Speaker 1: will suit, or perhaps he had until murderous men like
Speaker 1: Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy burst onto the scene.
Speaker 1: Earl Nelson was the most prolific known serial killer, not
Speaker 1: just in American history, but in history history. He racked
Speaker 1: up a kill count in the middle nineteen twenties that
Speaker 1: made London's infamous stabbing ghoul Jack the ripper look like
Speaker 1: a hobbyist, where the ripper has five canonical victims whose
Speaker 1: lives were brutally taken in the year eighteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: making him the nineteenth century's most notorious killer. Early in
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, Earl Nelson would rack up twenty two
Speaker 1: confirmed kills and many more, becoming the Encyclopedia injury for
Speaker 1: serial killer, a designation that had not yet been invented
Speaker 1: and so didn't have an Encyclopedia page, but that Nelson
Speaker 1: nevertheless defined to his bones. He was the most heinous
Speaker 1: and prolific serial killer of the nineteen hundreds, and he
Speaker 1: would remain unrivaled for more than half a century. And
Speaker 1: like the myriad monsters that would follow in his serial
Speaker 1: killing footsteps, Earl Nelson had a trademark murder method. He
Speaker 1: would find a house with a sign advertising room for
Speaker 1: rents and pose as a prospective tenant. Then, if he
Speaker 1: found that the landlord was a woman and was alone
Speaker 1: in the house, he would strangle her and sexually assault
Speaker 1: her dead body. If serial killing wasn't stomach churning enough,
Speaker 1: Nelson added necrophilia to his profane in pursuits. When he
Speaker 1: had finished outraging a poor landlady's corpse, he would shove
Speaker 1: it under her bed and then steal any jewelry he
Speaker 1: could find, along with fine clothing, pawning, both to finance
Speaker 1: future homicide. In this way, he delivered death and defilement
Speaker 1: to at least twenty two, likely twenty five or more
Speaker 1: unsuspecting women, women kind enough to open their homes to
Speaker 1: a stranger. Nelson left a trail of corpses from Philadelphia
Speaker 1: to Chicago, San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Baltimore, Buffalo, Detroit, and
Speaker 1: finally Winnipeg, Canada. If you're anything like me, you'd likely
Speaker 1: prefer to get as far as humanly possible away from
Speaker 1: the memory of Earl Nelson, filing it in a mental
Speaker 1: lock box labeled do not open. Well. You have the
Speaker 1: freedom to do that if you wish. But as for me,
Speaker 1: I find that stories, regardless of their ugliness and sometimes
Speaker 1: because of it, stories have a terrible compulsion all their own.
Speaker 1: And the top line is not enough. I'm in too
Speaker 1: deep to turn back now. So sip some ginger ale,
Speaker 1: take some dramamines, smoke some reefer, or whatever it is
Speaker 1: you do to quell the nausea, and come with me
Speaker 1: as we get to know Earl Nelson a little better. Sadly,
Speaker 1: the first stop on our dark, magical murdery tour is
Speaker 1: a place where human depravity and perversion is most often birthed.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking, of course, of childhood, in this case, the
Speaker 1: broken and tragic childhood of the monstrous mister Nelson. Earl
Speaker 1: Leonard Nelson was not born the Gorilla Strangler. He was
Speaker 1: born Earl Leonard Ferrell in the year eighteen ninety seven
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, California, the only son of James Ferrell
Speaker 1: and Francis Nelson. Tragically, for baby Earl, his father, James
Speaker 1: had infected his mother with syphilis, and when Earl was
Speaker 1: only ten months old, his mother died of the disease.
Speaker 1: And then seven months after that, when Earle was not
Speaker 1: even a year and a half, James Ferrell died from
Speaker 1: the same syphilis with which he had doomed Earle's mother.
Speaker 1: Still only a baby, Earle was taken in by his
Speaker 1: maternal grandparents, Lars and Jenny Nelson. Although Earle had sandy
Speaker 1: blonde hair and Ferrell is an Irish name and Nelson
Speaker 1: is Swedish. The law enforcement officers hunting him some thirty
Speaker 1: years later, presumed that the dark Strangler was Greek. But
Speaker 1: it's too soon for the adult, murderous Dark Strangler. Let's
Speaker 1: return to the upbringing of baby Earl Nelson. The Nelsons
Speaker 1: were Pentecostal and puritanical in their beliefs, in particular in
Speaker 1: regards to the evils of sex and the temptations of
Speaker 1: the flesh. Of course, given that their daughter Francis had,
Speaker 1: in the Nelson's view, been murdered by a syphilitic Satan,
Speaker 1: perhaps their beliefs on sex and the sensual delights of
Speaker 1: this world were little more than a logical conclusion supported
Speaker 1: by evidence. But from wherever those beliefs arose and strengthen,
Speaker 1: there's little doubt that they had a powerful impact on
Speaker 1: young Earl. In the Nelson's home, sex was a dirty
Speaker 1: thing that would lead to hell, fire and damnation, and
Speaker 1: the furious, fiery, and yet oppressive energy of his home
Speaker 1: life turned Earle into a traumatized, silent, and submissive child,
Speaker 1: so submissive that he was unable even to defend himself
Speaker 1: when attacked. There's no doubt that the Nelson's extreme religiosity
Speaker 1: had a mighty impact on young Earl, who later in
Speaker 1: life would become obsessed with biblical prophecy and in particular,
Speaker 1: passages that encouraged or justified violence against unfaithful women. Near
Speaker 1: the end of Earl Nelson's life, a prison guard reported
Speaker 1: that Earle had become obsessed with one passage from the Bible,
Speaker 1: in particular, Proverbs twenty three, My son, give me thine heart,
Speaker 1: and let thine eyes observe my ways. For a whore
Speaker 1: is a deep ditch, and a strange woman is a
Speaker 1: narrow pit. She also lieth in wait as for prey,
Speaker 1: and increaseth the transgressors among men. At this point in
Speaker 1: our story, Nelson was only a child, but those words
Speaker 1: from the Bible serve as grim foreshadowing of his serial
Speaker 1: killer trajectory, and it seems clear he found in them
Speaker 1: some perverse justification for unforgivable violence against women. The emotional
Speaker 1: wounds of his tragic childhood were deep, and perhaps they
Speaker 1: would have birthed the guerrilla strangler inside of Earl Nelson
Speaker 1: all on their own. But a second parent would arrive
Speaker 1: soon enough, barely a year after living through the cataclysmic
Speaker 1: earthquake and fire of nineteen o six, at the age
Speaker 1: of ten, Little Earl was out riding his bicycle when
Speaker 1: he collided with a streetcar. And if dead parents and
Speaker 1: a home full of furious religiosity were the Gorilla Strangler's mother,
Speaker 1: the streetcar accident, though it may have been the last
Speaker 1: thing Little Earl Nelson deserved or needed, it was exactly
Speaker 1: the deadbeat dad that the Gorilla Strangler required to be
Speaker 1: conceived and brought forth into this world, howling with fury
Speaker 1: and forever hungry for sex and death. You see, after
Speaker 1: colliding with the streetcar, little Earl Nelson was knocked unconscious
Speaker 1: and carried home unconscious with a bleeding hole in his temple.
Speaker 1: He remained unconscious for six days, and when he awoke,
Speaker 1: he seemed returned to normal, except that he would sometimes
Speaker 1: complain of blinding, headaches and memory lapses, and some doctors
Speaker 1: believed that the accident was when Earl Nelson's psychosis began
Speaker 1: in earnest There are those who have described Nelson's early
Speaker 1: teen years as full of day dreaming and compulsive masturbation,
Speaker 1: as though those two activities paved the way for his
Speaker 1: eventual arrival as a full blown serial strangling, sex murderer,
Speaker 1: and necrophiliac. To be fair, if daydreaming and compulsively masturbating
Speaker 1: were reliable evidence of future serial killing necrophilia, then literally
Speaker 1: every single teenage boy in America would be doomed to
Speaker 1: mature into the guerrilla strangler. And so, to be honest
Speaker 1: with you, as provocative as the label of daydreaming compulsive
Speaker 1: masturbator may be, I personally don't put too much stock
Speaker 1: in those activities as evidence of future murderiness. When Nelson
Speaker 1: was fourteen, his grandmother passed away and he went to
Speaker 1: live with his aunt and her husband. It was after
Speaker 1: moving to this new home that Nelson began to interrupt
Speaker 1: his endless daydreaming and masturbation with actual criminal activity. He
Speaker 1: may have interrupted his masturbation with other activities as well,
Speaker 1: because later blood test evidence suggested that in his teen years,
Speaker 1: Nelson had contracted gonorrhea and then the same disease that
Speaker 1: killed both his parents, syphilis, which likely hastened his descent
Speaker 1: into violent madness. In nineteen fifteen, at the age of eighteen,
Speaker 1: Nelson was arrested for breaking into a cabin he thought
Speaker 1: was abandoned. He was paroled from San Quentin in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixteen and joined the Navy, and then in nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: America entered World War One, but while in the Navy,
Speaker 1: Nelson refused to do anything but lie on his cot
Speaker 1: and deliver fiery, nonsensical sermons about the Great Beast of revelations.
Speaker 1: He was confined to a naval medical institution until the
Speaker 1: end of the war, and then discharged. It was in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, at the age of twenty one, that Earl
Speaker 1: Nelson began the descent into sex crimes and murder that
Speaker 1: would lead him to immerger arge, fully deformed from his
Speaker 1: grotesque chrysalis as the infamous Guerrillas Strangler. In May of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, Nelson went to the house of San Franciscan
Speaker 1: Charles Summer, posing as a plumber, there to fix the radiator.
Speaker 1: Once he was admitted to the house, he descended to
Speaker 1: the basement, where he found Summer's twelve year old daughter
Speaker 1: playing with dolls. He attempted to sexually assault the girl,
Speaker 1: but her screams brought her brother running to her aid,
Speaker 1: and after a brief struggle, Nelson fled the house. Later
Speaker 1: that day, Nelson was arrested by San Francisco police, but
Speaker 1: because of his bizarre behavior. He was transferred to the
Speaker 1: NAPA State Asylum, where attending doctors tentatively diagnosed him as
Speaker 1: being in a constitutional and this is a quote psychopathic state.
Speaker 1: In Layman's terms, that means he was the very essence
Speaker 1: of a psychopath, right down to the marrow of his bones. However,
Speaker 1: there was no cure or treatment for this diagnosis. Well,
Speaker 1: Nelson was put with the other mental patients and forgotten about.
Speaker 1: But Earle had no interest in being simply left to vegetate,
Speaker 1: and he quickly escaped. He was recaptured, but he kept
Speaker 1: escaping until finally the hospital simply discharged him on paper
Speaker 1: so they wouldn't have to keep recapturing him during one
Speaker 1: of his escapes. In nineteen nineteen, Nelson adopted the alias
Speaker 1: of Evan Lewis Fuller and married a woman nearly forty
Speaker 1: years his senior, fifty eight year old Mary Martin. However,
Speaker 1: he continued to behave like a constitutional psychopath. He was
Speaker 1: unable to hold down a job for more than a
Speaker 1: few days because of bizarre behavior. He would sometimes get
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night tell Mary he
Speaker 1: was going out to look for work. He would put
Speaker 1: on one set of clothes before he left leave, disappear
Speaker 1: for several days, only to return wearing a different set
Speaker 1: of clothes. He would offer no explanation for his disappearances,
Speaker 1: and sometimes simply claim that he had never left the
Speaker 1: house at all, although these strange episodes were occurring some
Speaker 1: six years before Nelson's first recorded victim. Later, as we
Speaker 1: explore some of the gory specifics of Nelson's crimes, you'll
Speaker 1: learn why these bizarre nighttime disappearances and costume changes suggest
Speaker 1: that Nelson was already murdering unsuspecting women way back in
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen. But for now, let's stick to the story
Speaker 1: of Mary Martin. It had come as no surprise that
Speaker 1: Mary was unable to rationalize her husband's exceedingly odd behavior,
Speaker 1: and given that Nelson was not a rational being, he
Speaker 1: himself was unable to offer any explanation. He made Mary's
Speaker 1: life a living hell. He became possessively jealous and would
Speaker 1: fly into rages whenever she talked to another man, including
Speaker 1: her own brother. He would direct his violence and rage
Speaker 1: at inanimate objects rather than at his wife, who was
Speaker 1: left to just stare in horror. Mary Martin was well off,
Speaker 1: matronly and had strong maternal instincts, which made her the
Speaker 1: unwitting templates for the majority of Nelson's future murder victims.
Speaker 1: When he eventually started threatening her life directly, she had
Speaker 1: him recommitted to the NAPA State Hospital. Back at NAPA,
Speaker 1: the other patients dubbed Nelson Houdini because of his frequent escapes.
Speaker 1: By nineteen twenty five, he was gone for good and
Speaker 1: was once again discharged on paper in absentia on March tenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty five. His family last saw him in October
Speaker 1: the same year, and then the career of the guerrilla
Speaker 1: Strangler began in terrible earnest. On October eighteenth, nineteen twenty five,
Speaker 1: not long after Nelson had last seen his family in
Speaker 1: the Bay Area, the body of missus Ala McCoy was
Speaker 1: found strangled to death in her Philadelphia home. Nineteen days later,
Speaker 1: on November sixth, missus May Murray was likewise found strangled,
Speaker 1: and three days after that, the body of Lilian Wiener
Speaker 1: was found dead sprawled across her bed. A room for
Speaker 1: rent sign had hung in the window of each woman's home.
Speaker 1: Rather than walk you through a rubber necking horror house
Speaker 1: of more than twenty grizzly strangulations followed by outrageous acts
Speaker 1: of necrophilia visited upon the bodies of the deceased women.
Speaker 1: I'm going to save us a large portion of that
Speaker 1: trauma and fast forward to the last few murders that
Speaker 1: got Earl Nelson caught. Don't worry if you're here for
Speaker 1: the depraved details. There are many more upcoming that are
Speaker 1: really too horrific to explore, but we're going to do
Speaker 1: it anyway. Just over a year and a half after
Speaker 1: the start of his killing spree, Nelson murdered his last
Speaker 1: American victim. On June second, nineteen twenty seven, the body
Speaker 1: of if missus Mary Systema of Chicago was discovered by
Speaker 1: her husband lying on the floor of their Chicago home.
Speaker 1: Mary's clothes were torn and disheveled, and she had been
Speaker 1: strangled with an electrical cord. Mary was the twenty fourth
Speaker 1: woman to be strangled and then raped by Earl Nelson
Speaker 1: in less than twenty months. By this time, he had
Speaker 1: murdered and violated women all across the United States, leaving
Speaker 1: victims in Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Barbara, Oakland, Portland,
Speaker 1: Oregon City, Seattle, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Kansas City, Chicago, Buffalo,
Speaker 1: and Detroit. Among women with rooms for rent, it seems
Speaker 1: no one and nowhere was safe. And if you're surprised
Speaker 1: by Nelson's mobility, know that he financed his demon's journey
Speaker 1: with money stolen from his victims or obtained by pawning
Speaker 1: their belongings. And as was hinted at by his early
Speaker 1: disappearances in San Francisco while he was still married to
Speaker 1: Mary Martin, he became adept at changing his appearance and
Speaker 1: identity simply by donning the clothes of his victim's husbands
Speaker 1: or other male family members. If there were no husband's
Speaker 1: wardrobe to pilfer, Nelson would simply use some of his
Speaker 1: ill begotten gains to buy a new suit of clothes
Speaker 1: at a nearby second hand store. And this is why
Speaker 1: I said earlier that his habit of disappearing from Mary
Speaker 1: Martin's home in one set of clothes, only to return
Speaker 1: days later wearing another with no explanation for the change,
Speaker 1: suggests that Nelson was already murdering women as early as
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, some seven years before his first recorded victim.
Speaker 1: Back now to June of nineteen twenty seven, after strangling
Speaker 1: Mary's Systema in Chicago, Nelson donned a blue suit, sweater
Speaker 1: and a pair of sandals that belonged to her husband.
Speaker 1: On the eighth day of June, mister W. E. Chandler
Speaker 1: of Canada was driving home to Winnipeg from Detroit. When
Speaker 1: walking along the road somewhere in Minnesota, he spotted a
Speaker 1: hitchhiker wearing a blue suit and brown sandals. He picked
Speaker 1: up the man and drove him to Winnipeg, and that
Speaker 1: one small act of kindness by mister Chandler would bring
Speaker 1: rivers of woe to the families of Winnipeg, because, of course,
Speaker 1: the man in the blue suit and sandals was none
Speaker 1: other than the Gorilla strangler. After mister Chandler dropped him off,
Speaker 1: Nelson went straight to Jacob Garber's second hand store at
Speaker 1: two eighteen Main Street in Winnipeg and traded in Martin
Speaker 1: Systema's blue suit, sweater and sandals for a blue herringbone coat, pants,
Speaker 1: black boots, and a gray felt hat and one dollar
Speaker 1: in cash. Then walking down Broadway to Smith Street, he
Speaker 1: saw a sign for a room for rent hanging in
Speaker 1: the window of missus Catherine Hill's home at one thirty
Speaker 1: three Smith Street. He introduced himself to missus Hill as
Speaker 1: mister Woodcott, a religious man, stating that he was looking
Speaker 1: for lodging. He then paid her the one dollar he'd
Speaker 1: received from bartering mister Sistema's clothes and sandals as an
Speaker 1: advance on his twelve dollars a month rent. That same night,
Speaker 1: a fourteen year old girl named Lola Cowan walked down
Speaker 1: Broadway towards Smith Street selling paper flowers that were made
Speaker 1: by her sister Margaret. Ever since Lola's father had died
Speaker 1: suddenly from a ruptured appendix, the Cowan family had been
Speaker 1: struggling to make inns meet, and Lola was doing whatever
Speaker 1: she could to help. She encountered mister Woodcot, who informed
Speaker 1: young Lola that he would very much like to buy
Speaker 1: some of her flowers, but that he didn't have the
Speaker 1: money to pay her with him, and she would have
Speaker 1: to accompany him to his room to get it. Hope
Speaker 1: and desperation make a potent dangerous cocktail, and young Lola
Speaker 1: Cowan found herself filled with both, so she followed the
Speaker 1: kind mister Woodcot to his room. Woodcott took Lola to
Speaker 1: Catherine Hill's house, which was empty, and then led her
Speaker 1: upstairs where his room was located. Like a gentleman, he
Speaker 1: opened the door and ushered Lola into the room ahead
Speaker 1: of him. As she stepped in front of him, he
Speaker 1: struck her on the back of the head to stun her,
Speaker 1: wrapped a length of strong fabric around her neck, and
Speaker 1: throttled her to death. Next, he repeatedly sexually assaulted her,
Speaker 1: and then stuffed her naked body under his bed and
Speaker 1: went to sleep. Following Lola Cowen. Following Lola Cowan's murder,
Speaker 1: Nelson stayed in his room for nearly three days. We
Speaker 1: can only pray that he spent that time sleeping. Then,
Speaker 1: on June tenth, he vacated Missus Hill's house and found
Speaker 1: his way to Saint Boniface and the home of William
Speaker 1: and Emily Patterson, a young couple recently arrived from Ireland
Speaker 1: who were renting a room in their home to help
Speaker 1: make the mortgage. Emily answered the door to find Nelson's
Speaker 1: standing there with his hat in his hand. He informed
Speaker 1: her that he would like to rent the room, but
Speaker 1: that he didn't have any money. He offered to make
Speaker 1: an advance on payment by helping out with chores and
Speaker 1: odd jobs. Emily Patterson was disarmed by Nelson's poverty and
Speaker 1: helpfulness and agreed, asking him to please fix their broken
Speaker 1: screen door. That day, several neighbors saw Nelson working on
Speaker 1: the Patterson's front door, but thought nothing of it. As
Speaker 1: for the gorilla strangler himself, he wasted very little time
Speaker 1: before unleashing his inner beast. There arrived a moment in
Speaker 1: the workday when Emily Patterson was in the kitchen with
Speaker 1: her back to Nelson. He immediately sprung into action, striking
Speaker 1: her in the back of the head with the same
Speaker 1: hammer he had been using to fix the screen door.
Speaker 1: A furious life or death struggle ensued, and Emily Patterson
Speaker 1: managed to tear some of the hair from Nelson's head
Speaker 1: before his massive murdery myths had wrung the last breath
Speaker 1: from her lungs. Although she could not save herself, Emily's
Speaker 1: bravery and toughness would be the beginning of Nelson's undoing.
Speaker 1: When he had finished satisfying his unnatural urges upon Emily's
Speaker 1: lifeless body, earl Nelson shoved the body under the bed,
Speaker 1: as he was wont to do, along with his own clothes,
Speaker 1: then donned a poor fitting whipcord suit that belonged to
Speaker 1: Emily's husband, William, and made his way back onto the
Speaker 1: streets of Winnipeg. He went straight to sam Waldmen's second
Speaker 1: hand store and traded the whipcord suit for one that
Speaker 1: fit better, and then he walked to Nicholas Tabor's Central
Speaker 1: barber shop to see about evening out the damage that
Speaker 1: Emily had rot upon his hair. The barber noticed bloody scratches, cuts,
Speaker 1: and fingernail markings in Nelson's scalp left there by Missus Patterson.
Speaker 1: When he questioned his customer about the markings, Nelson became
Speaker 1: highly agitated and ordered Tabor not to touch them. Nelson
Speaker 1: left the barber shop and hitched a ride to Regina, Saskatchewan,
Speaker 1: where he rented a room from Missus Mary Rowe under
Speaker 1: the name of Harry Harcourt. By now, the murders of
Speaker 1: Lola Cowan and Emily Patterson had been reported in Winnipeg,
Speaker 1: and word was circulated throughout nearby towns and provinces. When
Speaker 1: Nelson awoke on the morning of June thirteenth, nineteen twenty seven,
Speaker 1: to his dismay, he read a fairly accurate description of
Speaker 1: himself and the clothing he was wearing in Regina's morning paper. Alarmed,
Speaker 1: Nelson immediately vacated his room and went to the department store,
Speaker 1: where he purchased a pair of blue overalls, a khaki shirt,
Speaker 1: and a cap. But the sharp eyed department store clerk
Speaker 1: noticed the Winnipeg labels on Nelson's clothing and matching Nelson
Speaker 1: to the description of that morning's edition of the Regina Paper,
Speaker 1: he called the police department. Luckily for Nelson and unluckily
Speaker 1: for everyone else, he slipped out of the store while
Speaker 1: the clerk was making his call and hitchhiked a series
Speaker 1: of rides to a copa, where he stopped into a
Speaker 1: general store for a bite to eat. The owner, sensing
Speaker 1: that the strangler was in his store, called the only
Speaker 1: officer on duty, Constable Gray, in Killarney, and reported Nelson's location.
Speaker 1: Gray was able to drive to a copa and take
Speaker 1: Nelson into custody without a struggle. He locked the strangler
Speaker 1: in a jail cell and went to phone the Winnipeg
Speaker 1: Chief of Detectives, George Smith. While Constable Gray was making
Speaker 1: the phone call, Nelson searched his cell and lo and behold,
Speaker 1: he found a rusty nail file under his cot. He
Speaker 1: used the nail file to pick the jail cell lock
Speaker 1: and ran to the rail yard, where he hid in
Speaker 1: a grain elevator waiting to catch the southbound train. Constable
Speaker 1: Gray immediately reported Nelson's escape, and a special train of
Speaker 1: police detectives was dispatched from Winnipeg to aid in Nelson's apprehension.
Speaker 1: Winnipeg detectives discovered Nelson at the rail station before he
Speaker 1: could hop a southbound train. He was taken into custody
Speaker 1: and returned to Winnipeg, where he was met at the
Speaker 1: depot by a noisy crowd of over four thousand angry Winnipegers. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the United States would choose not to attempt to extradite
Speaker 1: Earl Nelson for his twenty or more American murders, and
Speaker 1: instead preferred to have him tried in Canada. Perhaps they
Speaker 1: feared that in the United States he would be found
Speaker 1: insane and once again put into the NAPA asylum, that
Speaker 1: he had made at the very least a hobby and
Speaker 1: more accurately, a career out of escaping. They may have
Speaker 1: been right. In Canada, on the other hand, they refused
Speaker 1: to question Nelson's sanity. He was captured on June tenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven, and his trial was scheduled for November
Speaker 1: one of that year. As he waited in jail, Nelson
Speaker 1: became obsessed with that same biblical passage from Proverbs that
Speaker 1: I read earlier, My son, give me thine heart, and
Speaker 1: let thine eyes observe my ways. For a whore is
Speaker 1: a deep ditch, and a strange woman is a narrow pit.
Speaker 1: She also lieth in wait as for prey, and increaseth
Speaker 1: the transgressors among men. In the context of his many
Speaker 1: horrific murders, mutilations, and bouts of wild necrophilia, Nelson's obsession
Speaker 1: with that particular passage is sickening and reads like nothing
Speaker 1: so much as a depraved monster attempting to use the
Speaker 1: word of God to justify his own profound transgressions. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned, Earl Leonard, Nelson's trial began on November one,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven. Incredibly, and for what reason, I can't imagine,
Speaker 1: Nelson's ex wife, Mary Martin, actually made the long trip
Speaker 1: from San Francisco to Winnipeg to plead for Nelson's life,
Speaker 1: but she would be unsuccessful. Throughout his trial, Nelson vocally
Speaker 1: maintained his innocence. But rarely, if ever, has the world
Speaker 1: seen a less innocent man than Earl Leonard Nelson. Of
Speaker 1: course not, according to Nelson himself. He maintained his protestations
Speaker 1: of innocence right up until the black hood was fitted
Speaker 1: over his head. The last thing he said was, I
Speaker 1: declare my innocence before God and man. Nelson said, in
Speaker 1: a clear, strong voice, I forgive those who have injured me,
Speaker 1: and I ask pardon of those I I have injured.
Speaker 1: May God have mercy on my soul. Given his terrible career,
Speaker 1: I suppose it should come as no surprise that Earl Nelson,
Speaker 1: to the last moment of his life, continued to behave
Speaker 1: with almost unbelievable gall and lack of remorse. But on Friday,
Speaker 1: January thirteenth, that's right, Friday the thirteenth, after walking thirteen
Speaker 1: steps to the gallows, Earle became the thirteenth person to
Speaker 1: hang at the Vaughn Street jail, three sets of thirteen.
Speaker 1: I know not what that portends, but it certainly feels ominous.
Speaker 1: Earl Leonard Nelson was accused of killing twenty six women
Speaker 1: in less than twenty months. The total could be higher.
Speaker 1: Some deaths were never linked to Nelson because of poor
Speaker 1: intercommunications between police departments. Others were never identified, and his
Speaker 1: actions well married to Mary Martin in nineteen eighteen, suggest
Speaker 1: that he started killing far earlier than his first credited victim.
Speaker 1: He was the most prolific murderer the world had ever
Speaker 1: seen until the arrival of such monsters as John Wayne
Speaker 1: Gacy and Ted Bundy in the nineteen seventies, and fifteen
Speaker 1: years after his death in nineteen forty three, Nelson's horrendous
Speaker 1: pursuits would inspire the Alfred Hitchcock movie Shadow of a Doubt,
Speaker 1: although in the case of the Guerrilla Strangler, I have
Speaker 1: no idea what doubt Hitchcock may be referring to. And now,
Speaker 1: because I'm all too aware, and I'm sure you are too,
Speaker 1: that pop culture, and especially the true crime genre, can
Speaker 1: easily stray too far into a Hollywood like glorification of
Speaker 1: violent monsters who deserve no glory at all. Before I
Speaker 1: say goodbye, I'm going to read the names of each
Speaker 1: of Earl Nelson's suspected victims and say again that Nelson's
Speaker 1: story suggests that the trail of bodies he left behind
Speaker 1: is even longer than we know, and there are likely
Speaker 1: women that Nelson murdered who will never be discovered and
Speaker 1: never receive the remembrance or the vengeance they deserve. Here
Speaker 1: is a list of Earl Nelson's suspected victims in chronological order.
Speaker 1: Missus Alah McCoy of Philadelphia, killed October eighteenth, nineteen twenty five.
Speaker 1: Missus May Murray, also of Philadelphia, killed November sixth, nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty five. Missus Lillian Wiener again a Philadelphian, killed on
Speaker 1: November ninth, nineteen twenty five. Miss Clara Newman of San Francisco,
Speaker 1: killed on February twentieth, nineteen twenty six. Missus Laura E.
Speaker 1: Beale from San Jose, March second, nineteen twenty six. Missus
Speaker 1: Lillian Saint Mary, San Francisco, June tenth, nineteen twenty six.
Speaker 1: Missus George Russell Santa Barbara, June twenty fourth, nineteen twenty six.
Speaker 1: Missus Mary Nesbit, Oakland, August sixteenth, nineteen twenty six. Missus
Speaker 1: Beado Withers, Portland, October nineteenth, nineteen twenty six. Missus Mabel
Speaker 1: McDonald Fluke, Portland, October twentieth, nineteen twenty six. Missus Virginia A. Grant, Portland,
Speaker 1: October twenty first, nineteen twenty six. Missus William A. Edmonds,
Speaker 1: San Francisco, November eighteenth, nineteen twenty six. Missus Florence fifteen Monks, Seattle,
Speaker 1: November twenty third, nineteen twenty six. Missus Blanche Meyers, Portland,
Speaker 1: November twenty ninth, nineteen twenty six. Missus John E. Barrard, Council, Bluffs, Iowa,
Speaker 1: December twenty third, nineteen twenty six. Missus Bonnie Pace, Kansas City,
Speaker 1: December twenty seventh, nineteen twenty six. Missus Germania Harpin and
Speaker 1: her daughter Nelson strangled Germania's infant daughter, as well as
Speaker 1: Germania in Kansas City on December twenty eighth, nineteen twenty six.
Speaker 1: Missus Mary McConnell, Philadelphia, April twenty seventh, nineteen twenty seven.
Speaker 1: MISSUS Jenny Randolph, Buffalo, New York, May thirtieth, nineteen twenty seven.
Speaker 1: Missus Minnie May Detroit, June first, nineteen twenty seven. Missus
Speaker 1: Maureen Atorthey, Detroit, June first, nineteen twenty seven. Missus Mary SYSTEMA, Chicago,
Speaker 1: June third, nineteen twenty seven. Miss Lola Cowan, Winnipeg, June eighth,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven. Missus Emily Patterson, Winnipeg, June tenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty seven. If there's one thing you remember from this
Speaker 1: episode of Kind of Murdery, it should be the names
Speaker 1: of all of those women whose lives were taken brutally
Speaker 1: and too soon by a monster named Earl Leonard Nelson
Speaker 1: that history remembers as the Guerrilla Strangler. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Zevan Odelberg. Thank you for joining me on kind of Murdery,
Speaker 1: to be at the show, to be subscribe, review, and
Speaker 1: tell your friends. You can find us on social media
Speaker 1: at kinder Murdery or email at Kindomerdery at gmail dot
Speaker 1: com
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