CA Earle Nelson, Serial Killer in the US and Canada 1920's

[Richard]

Earle Nelson (1897-1928), aka "Gorilla Man" Photographed after his arrest in Winnipeg, Canada in 1927.

Earle Nelson was born in San Francisco in 1897. He had a troubled childhood and spent time in mental hospitals.

... Nelson’s murderous spree started in October of 1925 in Philadelphia. Within three weeks, three women were strangled to death. Olla McCoy, May Murray, and Lillian Weiner all died in their homes after a struggle. Each of the bodies was sexually assaulted after they died. Each home had a “room for rent” sign in the window.

Some authorities do not officially attribute these victims to Earle Nelson, but some of these crimes’ common elements (the knots used to bind the victims, for example) matched those of his later crimes and he matched the description given by a pawnbroker of the man who sold clothing belonging to the victims.

A few months later, in February of 1926, Nelson returned to San Francisco and began killing more unsuspecting women. Five more women died from February to August, and all of the cases had the same basic pattern: Middle-aged women who put rooms up for rent ended up strangled to death and raped, with some of their possessions later sold off, but the killer was never found.

There were some witnesses who saw a possible perpetrator in San Francisco. A few people described the assailant as a dark, stocky man with long arms and large hands. This description was akin to a gorilla, so some newspapers began referring to this serial killer as “The Gorilla Man.” Others called him the Dark Strangler because of his kill methods but also because no one got a clear look at him.

Later in 1926 and into 1927, authorities began noticing more strangulation and sexual assault cases similar to the ones in San Francisco in places across the country, including Portland, Oregon; Council Bluffs, Iowa; Chicago; Kansas City, Missouri; Buffalo, New York; and Winnipeg, Canada...

In Winnipeg, Nelson murdered two victims. One of them was Lola Cowan, just 14 years old. On June 8, Nelson killed, sexually assaulted, and mutilated her before stuffing her body under the bed and then sleeping the night through on that very bed.

The other Canadian victim, Emily Patterson, managed to pull tufts of Nelson’s hair from his head before she succumbed to strangulation on June 10, 1927. The next day, Nelson decided to pawn some of her and her husband’s belongings that he’s stolen from the scene and then get a shave and a haircut.

Police tracked the stolen goods and then, with the pawnbroker’s help, retraced Nelson’s steps from the pawn shop to the barber shop, where the proprietor told authorities what Nelson looked like and that he’d had blood on his scalp (from where Patterson had grabbed his hair).

Believing that this man’s description and his modus operandi matched information they’d received from other police departments about the “Gorilla Man,” the police figured that they were after this infamous killer, got the word out about his description, and set out to find him...

The murderer rented a room from another unsuspecting woman on the night of June 12, 1927. But the next morning, he saw his description in the newspaper. It was time to ditch the remaining stolen clothes and head out of town.

Accounts of the ensuing brief manhunt for Nelson vary somewhat, but we do know that a civilian in Killarney, Manitoba reported a sighting of him on June 16 and police were able to catch him there. However, he was able to pick the lock on his cell door that night and escape.

But he was captured the next day when a policeman spotted him trying to board a train in Crystal City, Manitoba.

Nelson was finally arrested and charged with murder after his fingerprints and teeth marks matched those found at some of the crime scenes. Authorities claimed that Nelson killed at least 22 people across the United States and Canada over the span of 20 months from the fall of 1925 to the summer of 1927. The true number of victims may very well be even higher.

After a short trial, Canadian authorities executed Nelson in Winnipeg on Jan. 13, 1928. He was the worst known serial killer at the time in terms of sheer number of victims...

Four of the victims of Earle Nelson (from left to right): Blanche Myers, Beata Withers, Clara Newman, and Mabel Fluke.

LINK:

50 Years Before Ted Bundy, The 'Gorilla Man' Was The Most Prolific Serial Killer In U.S. History

 

[Richard]

Earle Nelson, aka "The Gorilla Man"

... During the 1920s, the murderer known as “The Gorilla Man” left a trail of more than 20 bodies throughout the United States and Canada, making him one of the most prolific and feared serial killers of the early 20th century.

Earle Nelson was born in 1897 in San Francisco. By the time he was 2 years old, both of his parents were already dead from syphilis. Nelson was taken in and raised by his maternal grandparents, two strict, domineering and devoutly religious individuals who taught the young boy that sex was dirty from a very young age.

When Nelson was 10, a violent collision with a streetcar left him unconscious for 6 days. After the accident, Earle Nelson began to behave strangely. He suffered from severe headaches, had trouble with his memory, and talked to invisible people. Nelson first caught the wrong side of the law when he was sent to San Quentin Prison at the age of 18 for breaking into a cabin that he had assumed was abandoned.

Not long after leaving San Quentin, Nelson began acting on his repressed sexual feelings. In May 1921, Nelson posed as a plumber to gain entrance to a house and attempted to sexually assault a 12-year-old girl. The girl’s screams alerted her brother who chased Nelson from the house. The same day, Nelson was arrested for behaving strangely and sent to the Napa State Mental Hospital. He spent the next several years in and out of the hospital in Napa, working odd jobs while on the outside, his behavior becoming increasingly erratic all the time. Nelson escaped from the hospital on numerous occasions, and the staff eventually discharged him in absentia in March 1925 because they grew tired of his antics. Earle Nelson was now free to prowl the streets.

There is some speculation that Nelson killed three women in Philadelphia in late 1925, but his first confirmed murder was in his hometown of San Francisco in February 1926: a woman in her 60s, found strangled in her home. Two weeks, later another woman was found dead. In June, yet another woman was found strangled. Nelson used the same ruse to kill most of his victims. He was mild-mannered and soft-spoken, and he approached women who were looking to rent out rooms in their houses. He also carried a Bible to add a layer of respectability to his persona. Nelson would play the part of a potential boarder. Once inside, he would attack and kill the landladies. He then hid the bodies, usually under a bed, and stole money and valuables from the home. The press dubbed Nelson “The Gorilla Man” due to the viciousness of his murders and the description that witnesses gave of him: “a dark, stocky man, with long arms and large hands.”

Nelson hitchhiked across the country, killing landladies and others wherever he happened to stop for a few days. The Gorilla Man struck in Portland, Seattle, Iowa, Kansas City, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Buffalo before he crossed the border into Canada in June 1927. Nelson hitchhiked to Winnipeg and noticed a “Room For Rent” sign hanging in a window of a house. Believing Nelson’s familiar ‘respectable Christian’ ruse, the landlady agreed to let him rent a room for a month. That very same night, Nelson lured a 14-year-old girl selling flowers on the street to his newly rented room and strangled her to death...

 

[Richard]

Earle Nelson, aka "The Gorilla Man" in custody.

LINK:

The Grisly Gorilla Man Murders of Earle Leonard Nelson

The Gorilla Man left a trail of more than 20 bodies in his wake, making him one of the most prolific and feared serial killers of the early 20th century.

the-line-up.com

 

[Richard]

LINK:

New Book Explores 1920s Serial Killer 'Gorilla Man Strangler'

The Gorilla Man Strangler Case: Serial Killer Earle Nelson is a detailed historical account of the Canadian part of the manhunt, capture, and identification of Earle Leonard Nelson, an escapee from a California mental institution.

www.forensicmag.com