Episode 62, The Gorilla Man Strangler - Part 4

We’re at the finish line! Today we wrap up the series about Earle Leonard Nelson, The Gorilla Man Strangler who murdered at least 22 women across the US and Canada. We will cover his capture, arrest, and I will give you the Sara’s Cliff’s Notes of the trial- because we know that trials suck. We will also cover his execution.

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Sources: 

Bestial by Harold Schechter

The Big Book of Serial Killers by Jack Rosewood

Serial Killers: Murder Without Mercy by Nigel Blundell

The Serial Killer Files by Harold Schechter

The Gorilla Man Strangler Case by Alvin A. J. Esau

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Transcript

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This podcast contains murder and mayhem, guts and gore, adult language, and sexual content. Exactly what you came here for. All the listener discretion is advised. Welcome. I am your mistress of the macabre, Sarah Tierra. Grab your Ouija board, light the candles, and grab your jar of teeth because you and I are going to escape for a bit. Pour yourself a cocktail, pull the window shades closed, and find a cool, dark, quiet place. Because right now we delve into the macabre. Hello, my little gremlins. Welcome back to the Mistress of the Macabre podcast. First and foremost, I'm very proud of the new cover art, slightly tweaked, definitely better. We are feeling fabulous over here in the Mistress of the Macab haunted mansion. I would like to say that I've missed you, but I haven't because I've been on a non-stop bender to get this series finished. Why? Because I love you. That's why. Also, I'm gonna be busy soon, I have some things to do, and I'm also going on vacation, so I don't want to leave you hanging. Therefore, I know we just talked, but let's finish this series and dive right in to this fucking nightmare. So where we left off in part three was the last murders which were committed in Canada. After murdering women in Regina and Winnipeg, dirty old fucking Earl Nelson was hitchhiking his disgusting ass back to the northern United States. Also, remember little Lola Cohen in her pink sweater coat and blue skirt with her little tin lunchbox of paper flowers? Never forget Lola Cohen. So, that being said, let us begin part four of The Gorilla Man Strangler. According to criminologists, the typical mass murderer, the seemingly normal man who suddenly snaps and goes on a rampage, is motivated not just by homicidal impulses, but by suicidal ones as well. We do see that a lot with mass murderers. They usually end up dead. Also brings to mind going postal. You know, the person who shows up at the office one morning and guns everyone down. This type of person is a human time bomb. When the explosion is over, there are corpses scattered everywhere, his own included, since most killers of this kind either take their own lives to avoid capture or die in police gunfire. As we know, serial killers are different. Some of them are self-destructive, but for the most part, serial murderers are not interested in stopping. They will try to keep killing as long as they can and try to keep getting away with it as long as they can for a very simple reason, and that is because they enjoy it. With lust murders, pleasure is obviously the primary motivation. The risk taking only adds to the excitement. Earl Leonard Nelson falls into this pattern. Although his crime spree is pretty fast in duration, he is not a spree killer or a mass murderer. He is definitely a serial killer. Since embarking on his killing spree in early 1926, he had done everything possible to avoid arrest. You know, besides just not murdering people. He was constantly on the move and he assumed false identities, changed his wardrobe every time he hit a new town. Also, he went to the barber after every murder. This allowed him to elude police throughout the United States. From the moment he crossed into Canada, however, his behavior almost guaranteed his capture. Was he feeling self-destructive? Did he have a secret desire to be punished for his crimes? No, we know this was not the case. Another explanation is arrogance, the belief that after failing to catch him for a year and a half, the police were simply no match for him. We all know the egos on these motherfuckers. Or another thing that happens pretty consistently with serial killers is they get sloppy over time. I vote for the latter. I think he, well, a little bit of both, a little bit of arrogance and definitely a lot of getting sloppy. But whatever the case, Nelson had left clues in his wake from the moment he arrived in Winnipeg on Wednesday, June 8th. And by the following Tuesday, the police had picked up his trail. They had located the man who struck up a conversation with Nelson on that streetcar that he was taking in Winnipeg. And on that streetcar, he had given the man his hat for whatever weird fucking reason. Detectives then tracked down the salesman who had picked Nelson up when he was hitchhiking. The testimony of these two men made it clear that the suspect had been heading west. They also knew the guerrilla man's MO. He preferred cities where he could blend in with the population and also easily find landladies, so police deduced that he must be heading back to Regina. The Regina police were alerted immediately. The entire police force was put on the manhunt. At the same time, three cars of Winnipeg detectives were dispatched to the Saskatchewan Capitol. One of the cars carried the barber who had cut Nelson's hair in Winnipeg, who had volunteered to travel to Regina to identify him should they find him. By Monday evening, the Regina police had canvassed every boarding house in the city and they had located Mary Rowe. Remember, she did not get murdered by him. He also took her little tiny daughter to the ice cream parlor and was probably gonna murder her. So they found Mary Rowe and she provided a detailed description of this man who went by Harry Harcourt, who had vanished that same morning. Inside his room, investigators found the clothing he had left behind. They could see that the clothing matched the description in the reward bulletin. They also discovered why Harcourt had left in such a hurry. On his bed was a copy of that morning's newspaper, its front page plastered with headlines about the gorilla man. It didn't take long for the Regina police to turn up a string of other witnesses. The jeweler who had paid $3.50 for Emily Patterson's wedding band, the owner of the secondhand store who had traded Nelson a black hat for a champagne-colored fedora, and the owner of the thrift shop where Nelson had acquired the shirt and overalls. It became clear that the suspect had left Regina in a hurry. Thinking that he had continued his flight west, police were sent to the nearest city in that direction, which was Moose Jaw. Meanwhile, new bulletins containing updated information about the guerrilla man's clothing were printed and dispatched to police throughout Western Canada, as well as North and South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Oregon. Customs officials on both sides of the border were asked to assist in the hunt, as were members of the RCMP. The U.S. Border Patrol was put on alert and agents of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railways were urged to keep a lookout for the suspect. And, of course, ordinary citizens did what they did back in the day. They grabbed every fucking weapon they could find. They had axes, hunting rifles, hatchets, knives, and they banded together and formed vigilante groups. I don't know, should we bring that back? I mean we'd have to make sure they're not racist. Never mind. Announcers interrupted the normal radio programming to broadcast the latest description of the suspect. Quote, last seen wearing blue bib overalls sewn with white stitching, a khaki shirt, brown boots with bulldog toes, and an old black cloth cap, end quote. Drivers were warned to refuse rides to anyone that resembled the strangler, and notify police if they saw someone matching that description. These bulletins brought results. On Tuesday evening, a call came in to the Winnipeg police station from the salesman who had given Nelson a lift from Regina on Monday morning. From his account, it seemed clear that the guerrilla man wasn't making his way to Moose Jaw after all, but was headed the opposite way, which was southeast. On Wednesday, June 15th, a man named Roy Armstrong was driving to his farm when he spotted a stocky stranger walking along the road and offered him a ride. Where are you headed? He asked the man. Sparting, the man said. Armstrong replied that he had never heard of it. The stranger said nothing. He then decided to ask the man who he was working for, because he was wearing work clothes and overalls, and he assumed that he was a farmhand. And the stranger replied, Nobody. Me and a pal own a ranch down here. A ranch, what kind of ranch? He asked the stranger. The man shrugged and said, just a ranch. The drive was a short one, and when Armstrong reached his front gate just a few miles away, the stranger thanked him, got out of the car, and headed off on foot eastward. Even though the car ride was short, Armstrong was suspicious. Like everyone else in southern Manitoba, he was on the lookout for the guerrilla man, having been alerted by the police bulletins coming over the radio every few hours. Putting his foot to the accelerator, he sped to his farmhouse and ran to the phone. Only a few phone calls to his neighbors would have alerted the entire community and brought dozens of armed men down upon the suspect. However, Armstrong was a greedy motherfucker and he knew about the $1,500 reward. So he was like, I want that money, I'm not gonna tell anyone. Although he wasn't dumb enough to try to capture America's most dangerous killer by himself, so he decided to call the constable at the local police station. The constable told Armstrong to come pick him up immediately. So they're in cahoots. He's like, hey man, I want this fucking money, and the constable is like, great, me too. Let's split it. So it's just the two of them going off to find this horrific murderer, which is so dumb. I mean, I will say that you definitely can't have adventures like that anymore these days, you know? Okay, so the two men then take off in the direction where Earl had left on foot. They calculated on finding him about a mile or so east of Armstrong's front gate. When they arrived at that spot though, the stranger was not there. They then proceeded to check a grain silo nearby, then they stopped at a nearby school where they asked the teachers and students if they'd seen this man. No one had seen him. So next they went to the farmhouse of a man named Reg Noble. Great name. Neither Noble nor his housekeeper had seen the stranger. Just north of Noble's house stood a thick grove of trees, which would be a perfect hiding place for a fugitive. So they spent an hour searching the trees, but no sign of the suspect. Still unwilling to tell anyone else or get more people on the ground looking for him, like fuck the women's lives at stake, right? I want that $1,500. So these two idiots continue searching randomly by themselves. I don't know, it makes no sense. They're also questioning people, so like word is gonna get out. Because they're also going to farmhouses and being like, did you see a man that looks like the Gorilla Man Strangler? No reason. Bye. So they're asking farmers, housewives, travelers, a group of Bible students that were out walking, asking all these people, have you seen a suspicious but definitely not suspicious looking stocky man? No? Okay, later. Also, so it doesn't get confusing, the constable's last name is Young. So it's Armstrong and Young. They are now out just like randomly on foot looking through the countryside, just the two of them. And they are doing this while the gorilla man's two most recent victims, Emily Patterson and Lola Cohen, never forget Lola, were being laid to rest in Winnipeg. More than a thousand people were in attendance for Mrs. Patterson's funeral service. She was buried in a simple gray casket, topped with red and white flowers, a farewell token from her husband. Many citizens were devastated by the tragedy, which her pastor called the sacrificial death at the hands of the most horrible murderer of modern times. At the same time, a simple service was taking place for 13-year-old Lola Cohen in the chapel of a funeral home. Only relatives and immediate friends had been invited, including a dozen or so of Lola's schoolmates who were crying uncontrollably. Outside the funeral home, over 400 people stood around on the sidewalk, waiting to pay their respects. It took more than an hour for the entire crowd to view the teenage victim in her open coffin. Lola Cohen's body had just been lowered into her grave when Roy Armstrong and Constable Joe Young picked up the suspect's trail. They finally came upon someone who had seen the stocky stranger. A farmer had seen him walking eastward around 1.30 p.m. Another farmer was driving home at 2.30 p.m. when he was approached by this man wearing bib overalls and a straw hat who asked to borrow some matches. According to this man, the stranger had headed off eastward. Armstrong and Young lost the suspect's trail for a while but picked it up again at around 4.30 p.m. when they came upon a farmhand who had been plowing a field when he noticed a stranger hiking along the roadside about an hour before. According to the farmhand, the man had been walking very rapidly headed east. Continuing their pursuit, the two idiots arrived at another farmhouse where the owner invited them in for dinner around 5 p.m. This is like some crazy shit. Can you even imagine? So there is a murderer on the loose in the area, and then two strangers show up at your house, and then you're just like, hey, do you want to sit down and have dinner in my home with my family? They used to do that. They like if you turned up at someone's door around dinner time, they would fucking feed you. It's crazy. I can't even imagine that. It reminds me of like it reminds me of Game of Thrones, to be honest with you. Or like the medieval times. This is the 1920s and people were still doing this. It's wild. Also, like uh, to make conversation with just some random person that rolls up to your house and you have to like sit and have a meal and talk to them. I can't. I wouldn't know. Am I an asshole? No, I'm just like not very social. Okay, that's all it is. I'm not a dick, I promise. After eating dinner with this random stranger, also, what did he cook? What if you made something really embarrassing for dinner that night and someone happens to show up? And you have to be like, oh, I didn't know you were coming. Like, let me pretend I wasn't gonna eat this, I don't know, cold liver and oat cakes or whatever the fuck. Would you have to go put a steak on to like save face that you're not eating something weird and gross? I don't know. Tack bread? What if they were just eating like hard tack for dinner and someone showed up? Hey, do you want one of these? Or no, you're good? Okay. Um, wow, I got sidetracked. Okay, they are like, thank you for dinner. They hop back in their car, they took off again. Also, like you're chasing a serial murderer, and you're, I don't know, you're just gonna like pause. You're just gonna sit and have like sit and take a meal. That's why more people should be looking for this guy. Take a meal after you alert the entire town and everyone's looking. But it's just you two and you're gonna sit for an hour and have a meal. I'm offended. A quick stop for road trip snacks, maybe, maybe. A full meal, absolutely fucking not. So now they came upon another farm where the wife of the farmer was waiting for them on the porch. So word is getting out. She's like, hey, he just came by here. I know you're looking for him, I just saw him, and she's like, keep going down the road that way and you'll catch him for sure. She's a Nancy Drew ass bitch. She knows where he is, she knows what's happening in her town. She's looking out her windows, she's calling the neighbors, she's on it. Two miles down the road, as they approached the next farm, the owner came out to meet them. He tells them to go straight south and that he's just right ahead of them. Apparently, with nothing else to do, because it's 1920, all of these neighbors were calling each other in a foam tree and warning each other to keep their eyes peeled for this man, which we love to see. We love to see a small farming community coming together to protect one another and catch a motherfucking serial killer. This is a magical moment. So these two idiots are like super excited at this point. They're thinking about how they're gonna spend the reward money. That's right. They're not thinking about the lives of women they're going to save. They're like, oh my god, I'm getting a new Ford. But the next thing that happens, because Karma's a beautiful bitch, is their car gets stuck in the mud. Classic. Just call the fucking police, okay? This is what you get. At the same time, they're struggling to get their car out of the mud. Nelson was seen entering a general store just yards away from the train station in Wacopa. He purchased this is always interesting to me. What did he buy? What did this fucking disgusting man buy? At the general store. He got a chunk of cheddar cheese. So far, no notes. Two bottles of Coca-Cola. I don't drink soda, but I'm still not mad at it because it's delicious. A pack of cigarettes. It's 1920, you have to. And a box of matches. Alright. Not that mad at his purchases. Gonna be honest. Mad at him. Hate him. Purchases? Fine. The stranger said nothing while making his purchases and took a long gulp of soda before leaving the store. Next, he was seen by a man working on a grain elevator, who then went into the store, and both he and the store owner called the police. Both men had been listening to the radio bulletins about the physical description and clothing of the serial killer who is at large in their area. So now these two other men decide to go after Nelson, okay? The grain elevator worker and the store owner. And they call yet another police constable that's not whatever the fuck that other one's name is. It's a different one. So now these three people are gonna go find Nelson. It wasn't long before they found him. They had just seen him. He had just left the store. So they like hop in their car to go after him. They're right behind him. So Nelson sees the car coming and he took off into the underbrush along the road. One of the men stayed with the car, and the other two chased after Nelson. The police constable was the first one to lay eyes on him again. He was moving along the edge of a wide ravine as though he was trying to figure out a way to cross it. Keeping low behind the bushes, he made his way as stealthily as he could toward the suspect. When he was about 25 feet away, he drew his gun and burst from the undergrowth. At the sight of the constable, the suspect threw his hands in the air. Honest to God, sir, I'm not trying to cross the line, he said. Gun in hand, the constable asked him his name. Virgil Wilson, was the answer. The man said he was a native of Vancouver who had been in Manitoba for the past three months, working on the ranch of a man named George Harrison, about a half mile south of Wacopa. He had never been to Winnipeg or visited the United States. He was just taking a hike through the countryside and planned to return to Harrison's ranch later that day. From both the man's accent and the fact that he used the term ranchers and not farmers, they could tell that he was not Canadian. Now, also, this is a small ass Canadian town. So the constable knew every single farmer around, and he knew that George Harrison did not exist. When he confronted Nelson with this fact, Nelson confessed that he lied about being a farmhand because he did not want to be arrested for vagrancy. He's always got an answer, this one, doesn't he? They then placed the suspect under arrest at 7 35 p.m. on Wednesday, June 15th. Is it gonna stick? Let's place a bet. Heads or coins. Wait, is that how a bet works? No. I don't know. I wouldn't know. Do you think this arrest is gonna stick? Because Houdini, be Houdinian. So word of the arrest traveled fast. When Roy Armstrong and Joe Young, that's right, that's right, these greedy fucking idiots did not capture Nelson and will not receive the $1,500 because they don't fucking deserve it. So when they drove into town 20 minutes later, having finally gotten their car out of the mud, they saw a crowd gathered outside the general store. They were like, fuck, we don't get that fucking money. They were pissed. And when they got out of the car, they confirmed, they heard the news, the guerrilla man had been captured and was on his way to the town jail. Virgil Wilson seemed unconcerned, as if he had been picked up for a minor violation. In the car he chatted and joked and gave easy replies to all of the police's questions. He was a native of Britain, he claimed, born in Lancashire, to an English mother and a Spanish father. He had moved to Vancouver as a child. For the past few months, he had been traveling on foot around Manitoba, seeing the countryside and supporting himself with odd jobs, mostly as a ranch hand. Unfortunately, work had been scarce the past few weeks, he was completely out of money, blah blah blah blah, it's all bullshit. And then he whines about not having a shave and a decent meal. By the time the car reached the jail, the constable was doubting if this was truly the gorilla man. The prisoner's height, build, and physical appearance matched the description of the wanted man, but he seemed so ordinary and good natured that it was hard to think he was the monstrous gorilla who had killed nearly two dozen women across the continent. Listen, we're All groaning and rolling our eyes. You are not a woman, sir. If you were a landlady, I think you would be saying something fucking different right now. I think you'd be seeing a different side of Earl Leonard Nelson, you fucking idiot. There was a crowd gathered when the car pulled up to town, but they didn't go straight to the jail. Get this shit. Nelson had convinced the police to take him for a nice fucking dinner instead. Townspeople crowded around the restaurant's front window, probably being like, what the fuck? They were jostling for a look at the captive as he ate his dinner in his usual, disgusting, gluttonous way. He ordered, we all need to know, right? I will tell you. He ordered a steak. I can't confirm this, you know, with facts, but in my heart and soul, I know that was a well-done steak. He ordered that steak well done. Guaranteed. He also ordered potatoes, carrots, and peas. And then he finished his meal with a dessert of vanilla ice cream. I'm hungry. This also makes me want to do another food and true crime episode, but the topics are hard to find. That bridge doesn't come along often, but I'll look into it. So between bites, fucking Wilson was like chatting and laughing and joking and telling the cops what excellent service he was receiving. After a cup of coffee and a cigarette, he was finally let off to jail, located in the basement of town hall. He was put into a steel cage cell and ordered to remove his shoes, socks, and belt. The constable made sure the cell door was completely fastened, sliding the heavy steel bolt into place and securing it with double padlocks. This constable, having spent a couple of hours with Nelson, called him the easiest going, simplest sort of chap you ever saw in your life. He's also hung up on the clothing. He had only seen the previous bulletin of the suit in Fedora and not the one about the overalls. Again, I think I mentioned this last time, but this happened in the 1700s murder pamphlet episode. Any yee old and timey episode. People just cannot get over the fact that suspects can change their clothes. They're like, what? How? That's impossible. Which I know it was different back then. People didn't have a bunch of clothes like we do today. They wore the same clothes probably mostly every day besides Sunday, and they didn't have money for other clothes, but still, I feel like my head would be able to fathom changing clothes, even if most people had one set of clothes. It's not that hard of a concept. However, it's very hard for other people back in those days, I will say. So, same thing here. This police constable is like, what? Cannot be him. A, he's nice. B, he's wearing different clothes. Cannot be him. Impossible. I will say he does actually do the TNC's tiniest bit of investigating when it comes to the clothing, however. He tries to go get a newspaper, but the store is closed. So then he calls another police station and asks about the last known clothing of the gorilla man, and lo and fucking behold, it's overalls in a straw hat. So after learning that, he's finally like, fine, I guess no more nice dinners with my new best friend. He then does what you would guess he would do next. He allowed himself a few minutes of self-congratulation. He had captured the most dangerous criminal on the North American continent, the notorious woman killer known as the Gorilla Man. But sadly, he had lost a best friend. Years before being dubbed the Gorilla Man, however, Earl Leonard Nelson had been given another nickname that the constable knew nothing about. What is that nickname? You already know. It's Houdini. And even at that very moment in time, while Gray was savoring his moment of triumph, Nelson was living up to his nickname. At approximately 11.15 p.m., only 20 minutes after locking Nelson in a jail cell himself, the constable returned to the basement jail cell and his jaw literally hit the fucking floor. The two padlocks used to secure it lay on the concrete floor and the steel door of the cell stood wide open. The gorilla man was gone. As for the officer left in charge of watching the prisoner, it never crossed his mind that anyone could escape from a double-locked cage. And so when he settled back for a cigarette and discovered he was out of matches, he didn't even think twice about just wandering off upstairs to find a light. He wasn't gone for more than a few minutes, but when he returned, the cell door was open and Nelson was in the wind yet again. Bare footprints were clearly visible on the dusty floor of the cell. The constable and the guard followed the trail to the furnace room where the footprints led across the dirt floor to the open back door. Running to the doorway, the two men looked outside. Even in the dark, they could see a path of trampled grass that cut across the rear yard and disappeared into the surrounding woods. Also, like, I don't know. Why is that fucking back door open? I mean, you have caught the biggest serial killer to date in the United States. And yes, you double-locked him in a cell. But then, like, you just left the back door just unlocked? That doesn't seem like good police work to me, but what do I know? I am not a cop. The constable then ran to the fire station and sounded the alarm, alerting the entire town. Within minutes, hundreds of people, mostly men, were assembled at fire hall. Sounds like a nightmare. The constable explained what had happened and organized a massive hunt. Several hundred men, yik, equipped with lanterns and flashlights. I'm just I'm sorry. I don't hate men. I just hate the bad ones. You know what I mean? And if you're gathering several hundred of them, probably most of them are gonna be the bad ones. I love men, trust me. No one's loved men harder and longer than me. Okay, so calm down. Okay, I digress. Several hundred men, equipped with lanterns and flashlights and armed with shotguns, revolvers, pitchforks, and axes, combed through the surrounding woods and lakeshore, searched through empty buildings, and patrolled every road within a five-mile radius of town. The constable got on the phone, telling the electric department to keep the streetlights burning all night. He also alerted the three neighboring towns and Winnipeg and also the US Border Patrol. That must have been hard to explain to literally everybody. So what had happened was this. This shit is fucking crazy. I'm here to tell you. Literally, I'm going to tell you. There was a little wooden shelf bracketed to the basement wall about one foot from the jail cell. Nelson had spotted it as soon as the steel door slammed behind him. Stretching himself out on the bunk, he laced his fingers behind his head and waited for his chance. It came sooner than he expected. Just a few minutes after the guard had arrived, he decided to take a smoke break and left. The instant he was gone, Nelson jumped up, shoved his hand, his giant, disgusting hand, through the steel bars, and felt around on the shelf. Immediately, his fingers closed around an object. What was that object? It was rusty and made of metal. When he pulled it back through the bars, he could not believe his luck when he saw what he was holding. It was an old nail file. You know some other prisoner left that shit there for this very reason. It took him less than two minutes to pick both walks. Swinging open the cell door, he ran barefoot through the basement, crossed the furnace room, and then ran out of the unlocked back door. He ran in the cold rain into the woods. He knew the Canadian Pacific Railroad stopped in town and he planned to hide until daybreak, where he could sneak onto a southbound freight car and make it across the border. The trick would be to keep from getting caught. He knew the whole town would be after him. Sure enough, he was standing near the edge of the woods trying to decide which way to go when the alarm bell began to sound. A few minutes later he could hear the sound of muffled voices and he could see the flashlight beams sweeping through the woods looking for him. And then, like the gorilla man he is, he ran off into the forest, found a tall tree, and climbed up as high as he could go. He made it 20 feet above the ground and he stayed there, being as still as possible until all of the searchers had left the area. Then he made his way down the tree and emerged from the woods. He decided to head in the direction of the railway station and he would dock into an empty shed or outbuilding whenever he saw an approaching light. He came to a vacant barn not far from the railroad tracks. Again, he got lucky with this one because inside was a pile of used clothing. He found a pair of hockey skates, pulled the blades off of them, and voila, he now has shoes. So he changed his clothes, he has new hockey skate shoes, and he spent the night in an empty stall in the barn, managing to stay awake the whole time. At daybreak, he heard the whistle of an approaching train. So at this point, all he has to do is make a mad dash to the train station and jump on a freight car. But no. This asshole really feels invincible at this point in time. So instead, he just walks up to a farmer on the way to the train station and asks him for two cigarettes and then stops and has a little chat with him. He obviously has the physical description of the escaped convict and murderer that everyone in town is looking for. He's also wearing like a weird sweater with hay all over it on top of the overalls and the khaki shirt. He is disheveled and unshaven and clearly, visibly clearly, wearing hockey skates' shoes. So, like, not inconspicuous in any way, this fucking guy. So as soon as Nelson walks away from the man, the man alerts his neighbors to go get the police. By this point, it's 8 a.m. and the police are out searching and they've been notified of the most recent sighting. A car full of officers from other counties are driving around the area when one of them spotted a dark-skinned man emerging from a thicket and booking it towards the railroad tracks. One man jumped out of the car to run after him. Nelson saw him coming, so he scaled the railway fence and jumped onto the tracks. One of the officers ran up to the fence with his gun drawn and ordered him to stop. The man froze and raised his hands above his head. The officer climbed the fence and dropped down to the ground, his gun leveled at the suspect. Who are you? he asked. A farmer, he said. Where do you farm? The man looked around and then pointed to a big wooden structure not far from the tracks. The officer saw immediately that that building was not a barn, and it was the city slaughterhouse. So he was like, nice fucking try, let's go. And he marched him on foot towards the police station. Of course, shortly after he was caught, there was a large crowd formed around them as they were walking, who were cheering and shouting, We've got him, which is adorable and all, but y'all also lost him in the first place. So the constable was worried about a lynching, but since this is Canada and not the United States, that did not happen. This was a happy mob and not a vengeful one. Funny enough, the train that was coming in where Nelson heard the whistle of the train and he was like running for the train. Guess who was on that train? You can't make this shit up. It was full of the higher-ups in the police force. And the second the doors opened, the police officer shoved Nelson into the arms of the literal chiefs of all of the area police that were on that train. So they're just like, the door's open, it's all these higher-ups, and they're like, here you go, here's this fucking guy. And they just put him on the train, and that's it. So at that moment, it would have been impossible to say who was more startled. Earl Leonard Nelson, who suddenly discovered that the freight train he'd intended to hop was packed with a large force of armed policemen or the officers themselves who had ridden all night from Winnipeg, only to have the fugitive delivered into their hands before they'd even stepped off the train. Once on the train, Nelson was handcuffed. It took Nelson less than 30 seconds to slip out of the handcuffs. And then he said, These aren't much good. And he handed them back to the officer with a smirk, which is funny as fuck. This is the only thing Nelson's ever done that's funny. The officer, however, was not amused. So then they produced two sets of cuffs and shackled him at both the ankles and the wrists. As the rest of the officers looked on, Nelson struggled briefly with the restraints and then gave up with a shrug. He's like, eh, never mind. He then said, much better, it would be damn hard to get out of these. Not like that rinky dink jail. When asked, Nelson described how he had popped open the locks with the old nail file, then hidden from his pursuers the rest of the night. He leaned back in his seat as he talked. His manner was relaxed and jovial. During the trip back to Winnipeg, the prisoner, who continued to give his name as Virgil Wilson, seemed so relaxed and unconcerned that a number of the constables started to doubt whether they had captured the right man. Apparently no one knows yet what a sociopath is, so I'll try not to be mean to these constables, but also like you're you're dumb. Nelson alternated between breezy conversation and silent contemplation. He would chat about his favorite movies or divert his captors with a dirty joke and alternately stare out the window of the train in silence. Continually bumming cigarettes from the guards, he chain smoked all the way to Winnipeg. His gigantic, disgusting hands manacled in his lap. While his captors slept the entire train ride, one journalist who managed to weasel his way on the train decided to stay awake and observe Nelson the entire way. He then proceeded to write an incredibly disgusting racist article about his appearance. Nobody knows Nelson's ancestral heritage at this point in time. And we actually still don't. I put a lot of time into trying to find out, couldn't find it. I will say, however, I can tell you what he's not. He is 100 million percent not African American. He is olive skinned, as we've heard 8 million times at this point. But as we know from the current state of the United States, let alone back then, any complexion other than pasty white is enough for racists to be racist. So I looked up Nelson's heritage because after all of these descriptions, I really wanted to know. He consistently told people he's Scandinavian. And that is not fucking true. This man is not Scandinavian. So I don't know what his ancestry is. There's no way to know. It's just his bullshit versus the journalist being racist. So, anyways, all that being said, I'm not gonna include any of this racist fucking article. However, the only thing that I think is pertinent in this episode, in this case, was an observation from the racist reporter about Earl Nelson's hands. He wrote, quote, his hands are thick and extremely powerful with gnarled knuckles and broad flat fingers. End quote. He also noted that Nelson was completely fucking unbothered the entire train ride. Crowds gathered at every train station along the way to Winnipeg, drawing thousands of people. The train itself didn't stop, but apparently people were so fucking bored back then that even just seeing it go by them holding the prisoner was thrilling. One reporter wrote that the watchers were electrified by the knowledge that inside the coach, passing within a few feet, was the man who had terrified a city and countryside for a week and who had a score of murders on his head. The largest crowds, though, were waiting in Winnipeg. Over 4,000 people tried to decipher which station Nelson would be arriving at because the police had kept it a secret. After a true Hollywood no paparazzi arrival of secret passageways and side entrances, he was booked into jail. When asked to write down his name, he wrote Virgil Wilson. After contemplating the paper for a moment, he then took his pencil and put a line through the words, and then finally wrote, as if lying was futile, Earl Nelson, born in San Francisco, 1897. Only 45 minutes after his arrival, Nelson was picked out of a lineup by two different witnesses, one of the men he had hitched a ride with and a secondhand store owner. Two other witnesses were preparing to identify him, Mr. and Mrs. John Hill, the proprietors of the boarding house where Nelson had killed Lola Cohen. By now, the press in the United States had picked up the story, and the capture of the infamous gorilla man was widely reported. One headline read, The greatest murderer since Jack the Ripper. Shortly after 10.30 a.m. on Friday, Nelson was formally charged with the murders of Lola Cohen and Emily Patterson. Though Nelson still hadn't shaved, his hair had been cut and his ratty green sweater replaced with a gray suit jacket and blue shirt. Headbowed, shoulders slumped, hands shackled before him, he stood and listened in silence as the charges were read. As Harold Schechter says in his book Be Steal, quote, Nelson looked about as fearsome as a short order cook. End quote. Shade. The elderly landlady, Mrs. Hill, we won't get to her. She is a fucking cunt. Sorry. I'm not kidding though. She's horrible. I'm just getting ahead of myself, but we hate her so much. So this old fucking bag was driven down. Oh, sorry for how I am. Okay. Uh she was driven down to the station and identified Nelson as her boarder. She also goes, okay, here we go. She also goes on and on and on to every reporter she can fucking find about the two dollars he owed her. And she doesn't give a single fuck or shit about the 13-year-old child who was raped and murdered inside of her home. Like, does not care. Even at one point, a reporter is like, Well, what about the child that was found dead in your home? And she is like, What? I don't care. I want my two dollars. She's horrible. It like comes up over and over again. She will not talk about the murder. She doesn't care, but she will go on about the two dollars. So, I mean, and also, besides Lola Cohen, which oh my god, we love Lola Cohen, but there's countless other women that he's killed, and she doesn't care about that either. She does not care about the serial killings at all. So she's big mad about the two dollars, that is for sure. Next to ID Nelson was Trolley Guy, a lodger of Mrs. Hill's boarding house, and Grace Nelson, whose room Earl barged into when she was in bed. All of them picked him out of a lineup. Though months would pass before Nelson underwent a psychiatric evaluation, his mental state was a matter of public speculation from the moment of his arrest. Dr. Hinks of the Canadian Mental Hygiene Association believed that faulty parenting was at least partly to blame for creating killers like Nelson. He offered his opinion in an interview and diagnosed Nelson as, quote, a moral imbecile. Not mental disease but lack of development in one part of his makeup is responsible for his horrific crimes. Such criminals were psychologically stunted, grown men with the crude amorality of vicious boys, the kind who take pleasure from plucking the wings off of flies. Many children like to kill things, to dismember insects, or stone birds. This is usually only a passing phase. In the case of certain individuals, however, these tendencies become exaggerated and fixed. Such children grow up to be men without conscience, immune to remorse, pervert, who kill not out of conventional motives of rage, jealousy, revenge, but to gratify their abnormal lusts. To a man like this, what is repulsion to a normal human being is appetite. In all other respects, he may be quite plausible, with nothing to indicate the freak in his nature. He is able to talk over his crimes rationally and without a trace of emotion, then go right out and commit murder, end quote. And what was the cause of such monstrously warped behavior? asked an interviewer. The doctor admitted that science had yet to provide an explanation for the phenomenon, though, quote, faulty upbringing, end quote, was certainly a factor. Once a person became a moral imbecile, the condition was incurable. But had the strangler been subjected to proper influences as a boy, Hink said, he might have developed normally. From a present day's perspective, most of Hink's comments make a great deal of sense, though his language is dated and distinctly unscientific. The phrase moral imbecile, which sounds more like a Victorian slur than a clinical category, has long since been abandoned by psychologists. Now, today we know that this is a sociopath. So even more identifications are rolling in, including the two landladies, oh my god, remember. Remember them that Nelson cooked Thanksgiving dinner for and gave them gifts. They ID'd him, and so did the grocer who he bought the $14 worth of groceries from on Thanksgiving Eve. The owner of a bakery near the home of victim Mary McConnell ID'd him, telling police he had come in the afternoon of Mary's murder and tried to sell her a watch. She had wanted nothing to do with him and called him a bum. She did confirm he was freshly shaven and had his hair cut short, which does help solidify yet another part of his MO, which we've talked about. Police suspected that Nelson would typically wait until his hair was shaggy and his face covered with stubble before committing a crime. Then, after trading his clothes at a secondhand shop, he would go to the barber shop for a shave and a trim, thus altering his appearance. Three other Philadelphia women, neighbors of Mary McConnell, had seen Nelson on the day of the murder. All three identified him. Throughout the country, in Burlingame and Buffalo, Seattle, and Detroit, people who had encountered the strangler confirmed that Nelson was the killer. Within 24 hours of his arrest, San Francisco police had not only discovered the suspect's real name, Earl Leonard Farrell, but had dug up his police, military, and psychiatric records. The picture that emerged from all of this was a violently unstable man who had been in and out of jails and mental hospitals for years. He was known to be an accomplished escape artist and had been incarcerated for a vicious sexual attack on a child, information that certainly matched the profile of the Dark Strangler. Investigators had also discovered that the gorilla man was married. And the fucking reporters and newspapers were ecstatic. They ate this shit up. Poor Mary Fuller, if you remember way back to part one, his wife, was suddenly on the front page of every fucking newspaper up and down the Pacific Coast as the wife of America's most perverted killer. In spite of the mortification at this exposure, she remained her usual steadfast self, protesting that Earl could not possibly be the culprit. Quote, I don't see how my husband could be this dark strangler. I know he was mentally deranged, but he was not violently insane and he was always good to me, end quote. Which is not true. He was not good to her. And yes, he's been mentally fucked up his entire life, but look at all the lengths of escaping and committing these crimes and changing his appearance and selling the clothes. Everything is organized. There's a pattern. Like two things can exist at the same time, you know, which is gonna be really hard for this time period to understand, but you and I, you and I get it. Okay. So when Mary was interviewed by San Francisco detectives, she revealed information that only added to the weight of evidence against Earl. So she told them about his disappearances, one of them being in early 1926, not long after she had taken him back into their Palo Alto home. He had vanished for the first time on February 19th, saying that he was going to Half Moon Bay in search of work, and had not returned until June 25th. It was during this exact time period that the Stranglers' earliest confirmed murders took place, beginning with Clara Newman's death on February 20th and ending with the slaying of Mrs. George Russell in Santa Barbara on June 24th. Nelson had remained at home with Mary until August 15th, when he suddenly disappeared again, saying he was going to Redwood City. Less than one week later, two more West Coast women were slain, Mrs. Mary Nisbet on August 20th, and Mrs. Isabel Gallegos on the following day, the 21st. Detectives also located Nelson's aunt, Lillian Fabian, and they interviewed her at her house. Like Mary Fuller, Lillian refused to believe that Earl was the strangler. Though she acknowledged that her nephew was weird as fuck, she insisted that he was a very mild person and capable of murder. When asked about Earl's wife, Lillian responded with nothing but praise. Quote, Mrs. Fuller is, of course, greatly worried over this. She is just as loyal to Earl as possible, but hates all the publicity. She's almost a mother to him, you know. She's nearly twice his age. Often he would leave her flat and she wouldn't see him for months at a time. But she understands Earl and he is much better off married to her than to a flapper. End quote. Not a flapper, honey. Before the week was out, Nelson would be identified by another 40 plus witnesses. On Monday, June 20th, the inquest into the deaths of Lola Cohen and Emily Patterson were conducted. They called a shitload of people at this inquest, including coroners, witnesses, etc. etc. Everyone was very, very shaken by the testimony of William Patterson. So he was the one that found his wife's body underneath his sleeping son's bed. He was like hysterical giving his account of what happened, and everyone in the courtroom at this inquest, they were moved by it. The only person completely indifferent to it was Earl Nelson himself, who sat through the entire proceedings looking unconcerned, if not bored. He was also yawning a lot. The jury foreman read the verdict that Nelson was responsible for the two murders, and Nelson displayed zero emotion. Now we are going to trial. And I fucking hate trials, so we are gonna do Sarah's Cliff's notes and just do the bare minimum. By the end of June, Nelson was indicted for first-degree murder in five U.S. cities, including Buffalo, Detroit, Philadelphia, Portland, and San Francisco. But Winnipeg prosecutors were determined to win a conviction in Canada. Blah blah blah, right? Hundreds of spectators, the courthouse is packed with people, no one has anything to do, so they're all there. More than 60 people testified. Nelson didn't give a fuck, he was calm and detached. One interesting tidbit, on the way back to jail after all of the days of testimony, everyone in Winnipeg was like terrified about Nelson escaping again. Everyone was like, oh shit. So he going to and from, he was shackled, he was handcuffed, he was surrounded by ten guards that were heavily armed. He was put into a patrol car, and when he arrived at the jail, he was put in a death cell, which was a heavily fortified structure reserved for the condemned. Quote, there is not the slightest chance that he will get out. It is a tightly locked cage within another tightly locked cage, and several constables will be on constant guard, end quote. And I'm sure the press and every citizen were giving him the fucking side eye. During all of this, Nelson gave one single statement to the press. He said, quote, I'm charged with two murders, but I'm not the one who done it, end quote. And when he was asked about the literal shitloads of eyewitnesses, he said, quote, all of them are wrong. Murder just isn't possible for a man of my high Christian ideals, end quote. Then Nelson's team, of course, pushed for delays and relocation, blah, blah, blah. He won't get a fair trial because of all the media. Meanwhile, the media is like, he's lucky he was arrested in Canada and not the United States. Because they were saying he was not gonna get a fair impartial trial and a presumption of innocence in the US. Editorial writers said that the guerrilla man had found himself in the hands of the most civilized judicial system in the world. Then they wrote about Canadian justice versus American vigilantism. In private, however, the Attorney General and other high officials were already, this is pre-trial, deciding where to hang Earl Nelson. Then Mary Fuller has to go to Winnipeg to testify on her husband's behalf. And she's accompanied by his aunt Lillian and her 14-year-old daughter Rose. And by the way, the press was horrible to Mary Fuller. They fucking roasted this poor woman. I don't know why, but they were expecting her to be gorgeous. I guess like a beauty in the beast situation. But Mary Fuller was what? How many years older? 30 years older than Earl's. So they just kept calling her a crone over and over again. Because, you know, she's old. And then they also pointed to Nelson marrying an old lady during the trial as a sign of his insanity. I mean, if you look at the victimology, it would make sense that yeah, he married an older woman. But as a sign of insanity that he married someone older than him, that is rude as fuck. Isn't that crazy? He married an old woman. He must be legally insane. Like, fuck off. Man definitely has a type, though, I will say that. So now the defense team, they're like, alright, we're gonna plead insanity. Sorry, buried the lead on that one. That's what they're gonna do. They're gonna bring a medical specialist in to X-ray Nelson's brain, and they're hoping to find some physical basis for their argument, evidence of his numerous head injuries or syphilis or something. Remember, his parents had syphilis, and he had an affinity for sex workers back in the day. Yeah. Nelson this whole time is still refusing to talk. He won't admit to anything, he won't say a word. A lot of American detectives at this time are traveling to Winnipeg because they are trying to answer some questions about unsolved killings in their jurisdictions. They have nailed down the 22 victims in the 16-month time period for sure. Like everyone knows that he did those ones. But of course, there are some other cases that are similar, actually, lots of them. And the police want to find out if Nelson is responsible for those, but he will not talk. He will not tell them anything at all. For example, so during this same time period, there were other brutal murders that were strikingly similar to the atrocities committed by the gorilla man. On the evening of August 23rd, 1925, so that's not long after Nelson was discharged from the Napa State Hospital, a 60-year-old widow named Elizabeth Jones was found strangled to death in the bedroom of her home in San Francisco. According to several witnesses, Mrs. Jones, who had recently put her house up for sale, had been visited on the day of her death by a stocky, dark-skinned stranger who professed an interest in buying the property. Several weeks later, on October 1st, another San Francisco woman was strangled and raped post-mortem, a 32-year-old divorcee named Elma Wells. Her naked body was found jammed into the closed closet of a vacant apartment, one of several buildings that she managed. The most sensational unsolved cases of all occurred in Philadelphia in early November, a string of killings that set off a wave of panic among the female population of the city. On Saturday, November 7, 1925, a waitress named Mary Murray was strangled in the kitchen of her house by an unknown killer who carried her lifeless body up to a second floor room, put it onto a bed, and then raped the corpse. Four days later, a 33-year-old housewife named Lena Wiener, oh my god, Lena Wiener, amazing, was murdered and raped in precisely the same way. Not not amazing. An overcoat and two suits belonging to Mrs. Wiener's husband were stolen from the home. A third Philadelphia victim, whose death received very much less attention in the press, was a young woman dismissively identified in the papers as Ola McCoy Colored, who was strangled to death in the parlor of her house just a few blocks away from the Murray crime scene. As in the other cases, Mrs. McCoy's body was carried to an upstairs bedroom and subjected to postmortem rape. A swarthy, thick-set stranger, described as either a dark-skinned white man or a light-skinned black man, was seen lurking in the vicinity of Lena Wiener's house on the day of her murder. Oh, it might be Weiner. But listen, I'm gonna stick with Lena Wiener. I'm gonna stick with Lena Wiener because it's better. Okay, I stopped. I took a moment, I composed myself. I was absolutely losing my shit over Lena Wiener. I don't know why sometimes I'm like a nine-year-old boy, but I've composed myself and let's get back into this. Lena Wiener. Of course, they rounded up a bunch of suspects, nearly all of them black, and questioned them, but the perpetrator of the three murders was never caught. There were other strangulation victims during this period as well. A 50-year-old wardrobe assistant named Mae Price was killed in a Boston hotel room while touring with a show called The Brown Derby, a 69-year-old landlady named Rose Valentino murdered in her apartment in Newark, New Jersey, another elderly New York woman named Lena Tiddar, garotted with a man's necktie in the bedroom of her house. Hoping to close the books on these and other murders, detectives from around the U.S. made the trip up to Winnipeg to interview Nelson and try to get a confession. But the answer was always the same. Nelson would say, Why should I get myself hung to help you? He'd never been to Newark, he'd never been to Philadelphia or Buffalo or Detroit. He was innocent of every accusation. Others might be capable of murder, but not a man of his devout religious beliefs. Numerous as they are, the existing documents on the Nelson case contain very little psychiatric information. Still, it's possible to draw some conclusions about his mental state. Shortly before the start of his trial, one of Nelson's guards was curious about the intensity with which Nelson was reading his Bible. When the guard asked what he was reading, Nelson said, Proverbs chapter 23, verse 26. The guard was like, What is it about? Nelson, who normally welcomed any opportunity to talk about religion, began to reply. Suddenly, he stopped talking and clamped his mouth shut as though he was having second thoughts. He looked at the guard and smiled his creepy little smile, and then returned to reading the Bible. Back at home that evening, out of curiosity, the guard consulted his own Bible, and this is what he read. My son, give me thine heart and let thine eyes observe my ways. For a whore is a deep ditch, and a strange woman is a narrow pit. She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men. It's our fault, right? For even possessing our narrow pits. How dare us exist? How dare we? You wish you could have this narrow fucking pit. That Nelson was so obsessed with these lines suggests that he fell into an all-too familiar criminal category, the type of sex killer that sees his victims as whores, as filthy man-eaters who get exactly what they deserve. You and I know that killers like this definitely do exist. Can we ascertain this about Nelson from catching him reading one of many Bible verses? No, we can't. Also, did he think these little ladies and children were whores? Probably not, but possible. I just thought it was interesting to include. Even in the face of the overwhelmingly incriminating evidence against him, Earl kept denying his guilt. At no point in any of this would Nelson display even the faintest glimmer of remorse. As far as he was concerned, there was only one real victim in this case. He was certainly capable of feeling sorry, but, like other sociopaths before him, only for himself. One concern for the prosecution was that Nelson didn't look like a murderer. You and I know that homicidal maniacs look just like everyone else, but they wanted to connect the mind's eye of the jury and the public with this man as a violent killer. Nelson was a small young man with smooth skin and white teeth, and he really didn't look that dangerous to them. That's just a random sidebar. I think he looks like a murderer for sure. Alright, so now it's time for the trial. Blah blah blah. There's 8 million people, they all want to be in the courtroom, they're told they can't. By noon, 2,000 people had showed up. Apparently, everyone that showed up was anticipating some sort of sideshow monster, a giant human gorilla hybrid, led in chains into the courtroom. But of course, he was just a very small man. Nelson was loving trial because he had been in solitary for five months prior, so he was like in an exceptionally good mood this entire time. He even passed the witness area where he recognized two of the provincial police officers who had accompanied him on the train ride to Winnipeg, and he said, Glad to see you again, boys, with a big grin. You were awfully good to me when we first got acquainted. Also, another piece of information, I'm just piecemealing the trial shit because I really I fucking hate trials. Um another little piece was some woman in the courtroom who needs to get a life said, Why he's the best looking man here. Which uh that can't be possible. I've seen him. And her friend agreed with her saying, he certainly doesn't look like a bad man to me. Not good pickers, these two. Freshly groomed and dressed in a graysuit, Nelson looked somewhat distinguished, which is on purpose, and we know he's not. He does look a little bit in one photograph like a business executive. Next there's jury selection, and Nelson is already bored and not paying attention, he's yawning, he's disengaged, he's staring off into space, and we would all be doing the fucking same, honestly. Oh, and sometimes he was flat out sleeping. So stupid. He did wake up and pay attention one time. He woke up and laughed when one of the spectators dropped a jar of peanut butter that she had smuggled in for lunch, and the contents of the peanut butter jar splattered onto the legs of her neighbors. He did enjoy that. In the first two days, over 40 witnesses were called. There's really no drama in this trial except for when William Patterson took the stand. Honestly, the entire room was crying by the time he was finished. He could barely even get his testimony out. He was choked up with emotion, devastated. And he told of the moment that he was begging God for strength and guidance to find his missing wife, when he found her violated corpse beneath the bed he was praying beside. His suffering was so painful to witness that spectators just broke into sobs. And when he left the stand, everyone was relieved, honestly, because it was that disturbing and emotional. It was pretty clear from the beginning with the insanity plea that Earl Nelson was not going to be put on the stand. So then where can we turn for more drama? Well, one person that was gonna be on the stand was Earl Nelson's wife. Everyone in the courtroom, with one single exception, was riveted by the sight of one witness who made her way up to the stand. A small, white-haired old woman wearing a black dress with white lace cuffs and collar. Although Nelson hadn't laid eyes on his wife for over a year, he was the only person there who seemed utterly indifferent to her presence. Throughout her emotional testimony, he yawned, napped, and let out an occasional low chuckle, proof of the bizarre affect and behavior Mary Fuller had become used to. The defense lost no time showing that Nelson had been deemed insane by experts. Mary then confirms that yes, he had been hospitalized several times that she knew of. And then she also did confirm that she had to be a witness for him once before, and that was in the San Francisco trial when he attacked the young girl. She recalled her visits to multiple different psychiatric hospitals, the one in San Francisco where she found him strapped in a strait jacket and talking about seeing faces on the wall. Then she talked about her visit to the Napa institution. She then was asked about her day-to-day life with Nelson. Quote, well, he always seemed to me to be of a type having no moral responsibility whatsoever. End quote. She was then asked about his bizarre behavior over the years, which she elaborated on. She then talked about his insane bouts of jealousy, his rages, and how everyone in her family thought he was crazy. Mary was on the stand for over an hour. Of course, under cross-examination, they're trying to move the narrative away from insanity and more towards erratic or eccentric. But Mary was adamant, she said he was absolutely insane. In her time on the stand, she had managed to paint a vivid picture of a seriously unbalanced personality. Next up was Lily and Fabian. Fighting back tears through most of her testimony, she confirmed a lot of Mary's accounts of Earl's weird behavior. Introverted, staring at nothing, talking to himself, picking up chairs with his teeth. Remember that shit? Etc, etc. One quote from her, she was crying as she was leaving the witness stand, and she said, quote, he is my own flesh and blood, and I love him. I've known him all the days of his life, and I will continue to love him. End quote. Meanwhile, of course, Earl didn't give a fuck, and he was asleep during her testimony. So now I am gonna touch on this a little bit. It's interesting because it is, you know, 1926. It's not current times. So they're trying to contest Earl Nelson's insanity plea. So they call Dr. Alvin T. Mathers, who is the head of the psychopathic ward of the Winnipeg General Hospital. He also provided psychological evaluations of criminals, offering his services free of charge to both defense and prosecution of whoever needed his services. Mathers had examined Nelson five times between July 27th and October 24th, and he was simply asked what the result of his examinations were. He said, I did not find any evidence that to me would constitute insanity. To which the prosecution said, no further questions. I mean, you could have done a little more, I think, but okay. Next was his cross-examination. The defense attorney hammered away at him, but Mathers was unflappable, insisting that although Nelson's actions were certainly symptomatic of a disordered personality, that they did not add up to insanity. And what is the supreme test of insanity? He was asked. The supreme test of insanity is the social test, he said. The ability or not of a person to live in conformity with the rules and regulations of life. We ordinarily consider insanity as an entirely social concept. It is not a disease. Is disordered conduct a sign of insanity? Well, not any disorder of conduct. The defense attorney then said, Well now, such conduct as this. If an individual was rather inclined to be melancholy and would sit in a chair and look for hours at a wall and not speak to people coming in or going out and stay in that staring condition, what would you say? Mathers said, I would want a lot more information than that before I would say he was insane. I'm doing finger claps for Mathers. And the defense attorney said, and if he would do these things, if he was inclined to disappear without any notice to his relatives and reappear and make no explanation, if he lacked, for instance, a sense of social fitness of things, if he would eat gluttonously in company, or if he would mix up his food and pour lavish amounts of olive oil on it, or if he would, for instance, appear at a public school in the afternoon in a full dress suit without any collar on or without any tie, and with just an ordinary steel pin for his collar, if he was a man who was insanely jealous of his wife to the point that it aroused his anger when she paid for her fare to a streetcar conductor, if this individual had never held a job for any considerable time, if he was filthy and dirty in his habits, and if all this followed after concussion of the brain and a sufficient concussion at 10 or 11 years of age to render him unconscious for four or five days, with the frequent reoccurrence of tremendous headaches, what would you say? And also with a very decided nomadic tendency and extremely melancholic episodes, sometimes punctuated with what you might call exalted moods and sickly piety. God, some punctuation would be nice. That was hard to read. Okay. Mathers, love this man. He was like, he's like me. He's like, the fuck did you just say? So he sat there and he sat there and he absorbed this weird, hugely long, hypothetical question before even responding. And he said, I don't think anybody could say as to that particular man just what the influence of that accident or that concussion was. Symptoms such as you have mentioned, or at least modes of life such as you have mentioned, might readily occur and do occur in people who have no concussion whatsoever. As to the number of different episodes that you have mentioned, not any of those would, to my mind, constitute or make me willing to declare that such a person was insane. I think I know people who have done every one of those things and who would be horribly incensed, and their families and everybody else would be highly incensed if they were considered insane. They are willing enough to have them considered perhaps a little queer and eccentric, unstable. But as to having them declared insane, which carries with it the presumption that their liberty must be curtailed, I doubt very much if that could be done. The rest of the cross-examination was the fucking same, back and forth, Mathers is unflappable, and defense attorney is annoying. So now it's final arguments. The only thing I want to mention about this is that Nelson, who was supremely bored throughout closing arguments, perked up a lot with his defense attorney's closing words. He straightened up in his seat and was nodding vigorously as his defense attorney made a comparison between Nelson and the crucified Jesus Christ. I shit you not. On the day the verdict was read, Lillian Fabian and Mary Fuller were not in court. They knew full well what the outcome would be and they did not want to attend. They spent that agonizing morning locked in their hotel room, comforting each other. The jury only deliberated for 40 minutes. It took one glance at their pale faces to know what the decision was. The foreman rose and announced, guilty. Excitement and applause swept through the courtroom. When asked to rise, Nelson had an expression of indifference on his face, and they asked him if he had anything to say. And Nelson said, I'm not guilty. The judge then asked him, nothing else, and Nelson says, Nope, not that I know of. Nelson was then sentenced to be hanged on the second Friday of January, which I would like to point out is Friday the 13th. A Winnipeg social worker had to break the news to Lillian and Mary in their hotel room. Though they had expected nothing less, the finality of the verdict was rough for them. They were both very emotional and upset. Then, this is like so this is sad to me. So later that same night, they received permission to visit Nelson in his cell. They were super emotional. They love him and he's about to die. They wept, they stroked his hands, they stroked his hair, they called him poor unfortunate boy. They were tearful. They're like, but we know you didn't do this. And when their time ran out, they gave him a final hug and said goodbye to him forever. Earl, on the other hand, didn't give a fuck that they were there, didn't give a fuck that they were sad, he was unmoved by them being there, and then he was unmoved by them leaving. He was unconcerned about everything except for his food. Now that he only had two months to live, he told his guards he expected a more varied menu, and he was already worried about the upcoming holiday. Thanksgiving, he reminded his captors, was less than three weeks away. As an American citizen, he was entitled to a turkey dinner complete with all the trimmings. Nelson was then silent for the next six months. Then he decided to take an interview and go public with his own version of offense. And it's gonna go well, as you can imagine. Nelson, at this time, had gained some weight. He was a fatty. Turns out the warden of the jail had agreed to Nelson's request for more varied meals. At the start of the interview, a guard arrived with his usual lunch, which was ham, tomatoes, French fries, cheese, bread, and coffee, which Nelson then consumed in his usual disgusting way. Finally, when he was done eating, he said, Go ahead and ask me what you want to. When asked about his travels in the months preceding the Winnipeg murders, Nelson launched into a long, disjointed speech that was both highly selective recollections and also bitter tirades against the authorities. According to his story, he had set out from San Francisco, where he'd be working as a carpenter in March of 1927. He's annoying as fuck. He's just making shit up, but I'll give you one little quote. He said, I left in one of those kind of spells I had sort of a dream, not knowing where I was going. I got to Sacramento, from there to different towns. I reached Trekkee, California. From there I went to Nevada, then to Idaho, then to Wyoming. Quite a ways I wandered into Wyoming, then to Montana, into Butte and Helena. And I was at Great Falls, I think. Blah blah blah. Then he says he went a bunch of other places he didn't go. Then they ask him if he's been to the states where the murders took place. They list those states only. And he says, No, I've never been to any of those states ever. Then they're like, Well, when did you get to Winnipeg? And he said, I've never been to Winnipeg. I have no idea what you're talking about. And then he's asked, but what about all the witnesses? And Nelson does the classic thing when a murderer is caught and put in jail. It's all a conspiracy against him. He didn't do anything. The crown's witnesses are mistaken, they are wrong, they are prejudiced, they've been coached, blah blah blah blah blah. Same shit that happens today, same bullshit. So he does all of that. He tells them everyone is lying. I am Jesus Christ the martyr. And then he says, then he says it's his blood on their hands. My innocent blood is on the hands of those who have done me up or who were instrumental in the identification parade, he said. He then, listen, this goes on a long time of him ranting about how he is set up. So I'm just gonna fucking skip all that shit, because we know he's a liar. Then he pulls out a bundle of letters uh from under his mattress, and it's his fan mail, and he wants to show the reporter his fan mail. He says it's mostly from women. So then his defense attorney, of course, makes an appeal. He petitions people from Nelson's life and childhood, he petitions the psychiatric places where he was kept, he makes a 30-page document, sends it to the appeals court, and it was immediately denied. Whether Nelson was insane according to legal definitions is a question that will never be conclusively resolved, but he certainly wasn't deluded about his chances for survival. He was not insane, I will tell you that. Hearing the news from his cell after the telegram arrived that he did not win an appeal, he merely shrugged, gave a little sigh, and said, That's what I expected. Arthur Ellis, the official executioner of the Dominion of Canada, spent Thursday, January 12th inspecting the scaffold that stood in the jail yard. A true professional, he also visited the condemned man in his cell to size up Nelson's stature and weight. Afterwards, Ellis was interviewed by reporters. His precise words were never printed, but one newspaper summed up the gist of his remarks. Regarding Nelson's crimes as the most horrible he has ever known, the paper reported, the hangman expressed keener anticipation at carrying out this execution than any other in his history. Ellis was not the only one looking forward to Nelson's execution. For weeks the sheriff's office had been swamped with requests from people eager to witness the hanging. The letters poured in from near and far. The sheriff relegated all of these letters to the trash. Only those whose duty calls them there will be present at the hanging, he said. There was one vantage point from which spectators could watch Nelson hang even without an official invitation. As far back as June, right after Nelson's arrest, officials had expressed concern about the proximity of the jail to the University of Manitoba, whose main building directly overlooked the courtyard where hangings took place. These officials believed that the mere sight of the gallows would be intensely distressing to the students. On the contrary, the students were so excited about the hanging that a bunch of them planned to sneak into the upper floor rooms of the building and watch the execution through the windows. Hi, it's me. I was one of those students. Much to their disappointment, the university president got wind of this scheme and issued an immediate warning. He said, Swift and Stern will be the end of the career of any university students who attempt to witness the execution of Earl Nelson tomorrow morning. Any students who attempt to reach rooms overlooking the jail yard at the time of the hanging will face instant expulsion. While the city was very excited about this hanging, Nelson himself was remarkably calm. He spent the day kicking it with a priest and being baptized as Catholic. He did agree to see William McConnell, whose wife Mary was the 16th murder victim of his. Desperate for closure, McConnell had made the long trip from Philadelphia in the hope of getting the truth out of Nelson on his last day alive. But Nelson, being a piece of fucking shit, refused to oblige. I have no confession to make, he said. I did not do the deed. He had never been to Philadelphia in his entire fucking life, and he had never traveled east of Nevada, is what he said. The whole thing was a frame up, he told McConnell. I just hope for your sake that the real guilty party will be caught one day and pay the penalty. After about two hours that were completely useless, McConnell gave up. Still, somehow he found it in his heart to forgive Nelson. I hope he's made his peace with God, he told reporters. From the bottom of my heart, I forgive him. I think he's insane. I have no malice whatever against the man. Lola Cohen's mother had the same desire for closure. Mrs. Cohen was seeking whatever solace could be derived from the conclusive knowledge that Nelson was indeed the killer. But she too came away empty-handed. I never saw that child, Nelson said, insisting that he had never been in Winnipeg, even though he was arrested there. Nelson granted one more interview that afternoon. Once again he protested his innocence. He said that God in his own good time will disclose the guilty parties to the world. He said that he was a victim of the circumstances. Before God and man, I am innocent. I am ready to meet my God, who I'm sure will have pity on me for everything I have suffered, he told the press. I hope he suffers as much as I suffered listening to that bullshit, and then some. When the reporter suggested to Nelson that he was on the brink of eternity and should tell the fucking truth for once and unburden himself, Nelson became even more emphatic. Why should I lie? Tomorrow morning I'm going to hang. There's no hope of saving my body, and I'm certainly not going to do anything to hurt my soul. I swear to you, I'm telling the truth. I never murdered anybody. Never, never, never. I've been unfortunate from the day of my birth. I've been handicapped by the sins of my parents, who left a taint in my blood that's caused me all kinds of agony of body and mind. They blame me for attacking women in my earlier years, but that's untrue. I never did so. Women as such never even interested me. I was never anxious to be among them, he said. Is it possible that you committed the crimes when your mind wasn't functioning normally, and that you've completely forgotten the facts? One reporter asked him. No, sir, Nelson said, shaking his head vehemently. That's absolutely impossible. I am innocent, innocent. Here he gave the reporter a look. Don't you believe me? The reporter said, The jury found you guilty and the evidence against you looked pretty strong. I know that, Nelson said, but I was wrongly identified by people who didn't realize what they were doing. The last question by the reporter was, Are you afraid to die, Nelson? Nelson replied, Life is sweet. Like everyone else, I prefer to live. But only long enough to clear my name. I've thought everything over, and you know what? I think God is good to take me away. If I lived, the law would just send me away to the penitentiary for life. Or to an insane asylum. I don't want that. I'd rather die than be locked up hardened criminals or madmen. Tomorrow morning, I expect to be in heaven. There are no detectives or policemen up there, only the good. Maybe I'll finally find the peace and happiness that have been denied me here on earth. Um what? He doesn't want to be locked up with hardened criminals or madmen. Sir, the irony. Also, what all policemen go to hell? Detectives and cops, they're in hell. But Earl Leonard Nelson, the rapist and serial killer and murderer of children, he'll be up there in heaven. Not long after the interview ended, a guard brought Nelson his last supper, which he consumed in his usual pig-like, disgusting fucking way. Actually, pigs are cute, not pig like. Just like a fucking dirty monster. What was his last meal? Of course, we are going to go over it. He had grapefruit, my favorite fruit, but would I eat it for my last meal? Fucking no. Liver and bacon, again, liver is the last meal. Are you fucking serious right now? He had apple pie. I mean, fine. But hot fruit, I don't eat hot fruit. That'd be out for me too. And coffee. I can't drink caffeine. Okay, I hate his whole last meal. I hate it. It's terrible. That makes me happy. He deserves a terrible last meal. If anyone deserves the worst last meal ever, he's on the list. I wrote, this might be the worst last meal I've ever heard of, even after doing the last meals episode. This is disgusting. At 5 a.m. on Friday the 13th, Nelson had a mass performed in his cell where he received Holy Communion. I am shocked that he did not burst into flames. Another mass was set at 5.30. Shortly afterwards, a guard brought Nelson a tray with a light breakfast of toast and tea, which Nelson consumed. At 7 30, the show began. Spectators spoke in whispers as they huddled at the foot of the gallows. Suddenly, their talking ceased. The hangman, Arthur Ellis, was now on the stage. Mounting the stairs, he made a last minute inspection of the apparatus, then asked that the condemned man be brought out. All eyes turned to the door through which Nelson would emerge. He made his grand entrance a moment later, arms strapped behind him, flanked by a pair of large guards, and followed by two chanting priests. He was dressed in a collarless shirt, blue pants, tan shoes, and stockings. His face was pale, his hair unbrushed, his face unshaven. He climbed to the top of the scaffold, took his place at the center of the stage, I mean trapdoor, then turned and faced the audience. After holding out a cross for him to kiss, a priest said a few final words to Nelson and descended the stairs, while the hangman adjusted the noose around his neck. Asked if he had any last words, Nelson, in a clear, firm voice, said, I declare my innocence before God and man. I forgive those who have injured me, and I ask pardon from those who I have injured. May the Lord have mercy on my soul. No sooner were these words out of his mouth than Ellis slipped a black hood over his head, stepped away from the trap, and drew the lever. The trap crashed open, and Earl Leonard Nelson took his final bow. The hooded figure fell, bounced, and dropped again. Neck broken, head cocked at a grotesque angle, he spun in the shadows beneath the scaffold, his limbs giving an occasional spasmatic twitch. Bye, bitch. Stepping up to the body, Alice removed the leather straps from Nelson's wrists. In spite of his long experience, he seemed strangely unsettled, his hands shaking visibly as he undid the restraints. When the straps were off, the prison physician went to the body and felt for a pulse. Though the evening papers would report that death was instantaneous, it wasn't until 7 52 AM, eleven full minutes after Nelson took the plunge, that the doctor turned to the witnesses and said, It's over. A black flag was hoisted on the prison tower to signal that the execution had been carried out, which is very piratey of them. I love that. Minutes after the corpse was cut down and transported to the prison morgue, the coroner's jury returned its verdict. The official cause of Earl Nelson's demise, fittingly enough, was death by strangulation. Immediately after the hanging, a reverend acting on behalf of Lillian and Mary claimed Nelson's corpse and arranged for it to be transported to a funeral home, where it was laid in an open gray coffin and displayed in the parlor chapel. Affixed to the coffin at Lillian's request was a small brass plaque engraved with the dead man's real name, Earl L. Farrell. Of course, because this is ye olden times and no one has shit to do, it didn't take very long for word to spread that the guerrilla man's corpse was available for viewing. By 6 p.m., more than a thousand people had gathered at the funeral home. Special constables were dispatched to the scene to maintain order. It was almost midnight before the last of the curiosity seekers filed past the coffin. By 8 a.m. the next morning on January 14th, 1928, a new crowd had assembled at the funeral parlor, eager to get one final look at the man whose crimes had repulsed the world. A front page article about the viewing appeared in that morning's local paper. Never before in the history of Winnipeg has such widespread curiosity been manifested by the public to view a criminal's body, the newspaper said. The attorney general read this article and he was fucking pissed. This was morbid as fuck and he was not having it. So he sent the police to Barker's funeral home. The police were there not to keep the crowd under control, but to get rid of it entirely. By noon, the second showing was shut down. The guerrilla man's body was carried by rail to his birthplace of San Francisco. There, on Sunday, January 15th, it was received by Lillian and Mary, Earl Leonard Farrell's only mourners. This episode is dedicated to the 22 and most likely. More women who lost their lives to the hands of the gorilla man strangler. We say their names because they lived and they were loved and they are missed. Clara Newman, San Francisco, Laura Beale, San Jose, Lillian St. Mary, San Francisco, Ollie Russell, Santa Barbara, Mary Nisbet, Oakland, Beta Withers, Portland, Virginia Grant, Portland, Mabel Fluke, Portland, Mrs. William Anna Edmonds, San Francisco, Florence Monks, Seattle, Blanche Myers, Portland, Mrs. John Berard, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Bonnie Pace, Kansas City, Missouri, Germania Harpin, Kansas City, Missouri, Robert Harpin, Kansas City, Missouri, Mary McConnell, Philadelphia, Jenny Randolph, Buffalo, Fannie Mae, Detroit, Maureen Oswald, Atorthy, Detroit, Mary Sistema, Chicago, Lola Cohen, Winnipeg, Emily Patterson, Winnipeg. May their souls rest at peace. And that is the case of Earl Leonard Nelson, the Gorilla Man Strangler. May he fucking continue to rot for eternity. I need this really badly right now. I'm sure you do as well. It is time for nature. It's fucking cool. The rosy maple moth. Dryocampa Rubicunda, the rosy maple moth, is a small North American moth from the family Saturnidae, also known as the Great Silk Moths. It was first described by Johann Christian Fabricius in 1793. The species is known for its woolly body and pink and yellow coloration, which varies from cream or white to bright pink or yellow. Males have bushier antennae than females, which allow them to sense female pheromones from mating. As the common name of the species implies, the preferred host trees are maple trees. Adult females lay their yellow ovular eggs in groups of 10 to 40 on the underside of maple leaves. The emerging caterpillars, also known as the green-striped maple worm, mainly feed on the leaves of their host maple trees, particularly red maple, silver maple, and sugar maple. Since the caterpillars eat the entire leaf blade, in dense populations, caterpillars have been known to defoliate trees, resulting in aesthetic rather than permanent damage. However, like all other Saturnid moths, the adult moths do not eat. The rosy maple moth is the smallest of the silk moths. Males have a wingspan of 1.2 to 1.75 inches, and female wingspans of 1.5 to 2 inches. The species can be identified by their unique but varying pink and yellow coloration. They have reddish to pink legs and antennae, yellow bodies and hind wings, and pink forewings with a triangular yellow band across the middle. The rosy maple moth lives across the eastern and northern United States and adjacent regions of Canada. Their northernmost range includes the southern regions of Canada, including Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Their range extends south along the Atlantic coast of North America to Dade County, Florida, and extends west from eastern Texas through Minnesota. The predators of the rosy maple moth and larvae mostly consist of birds, including blue jays, black capped chickadees, and tufted tit mice. The bright coloration of the wings may serve as a defense mechanism to trick predators into thinking they are poisonous and not edible. The coloration of this moth also surprisingly acts as a form of camouflage, blending it in with maple seed cases. Adults become active in the warmer months of the year. Adult moths are generally nocturnal, flying throughout the first third of the night. These little babies are the freaking cutest things I've ever seen in my entire life. I know I say that every week. They are fuzzy and furry, and they are cotton candy pink and bright yellow, and they have the gorgeous alien antennae. They are amazing. Definitely go look at pictures. They will also be on my social media accounts and my website. Definitely go look at them for a pick me up because they are gorgeous, they are stunning, and they look like Linda Evangelista. So that is the case of Earl Leonard Nelson. I'm glad I birthed it. I'm glad it's out of my fucking body and I can move on with my life. I hope you enjoyed it though. I hope you found it interesting. I mean, I don't know how this case isn't more well known. It's it's horrific. But yeah, we did it. We made it through together, and we'll be on to something else horrible next week. And I can't wait. Oh, one more thing. I might have homework for you. If I do what I think I'm gonna do next time, I will drop a little homework assignment in the main feed because it's a mainstream case, but I'm not gonna do mainstream things. So you're gonna need to know the case beforehand. But you probably already know it. If you're here at this podcast, you already know this case. Except for what I'm gonna fucking tell you, you definitely don't know that. Anyways, I'll keep you posted. Who knows? I might change my mind a million times between now and then, but if you need to do homework, I will let you know. And I will talk to you motherfucking next time. Okay. Bye. Full source notes are available at mistress of the macabre podcast.com as well as photos pertaining to each episode. Follow along on Instagram for all the insane and gory photos at Mistress of the Macab Podcast. Please leave a five-star rating and review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps the show grow, and I will love you forever. And tell a friend, if you even have any. Bonus content is available at patreon.com or on Apple Podcast Subscriptions. I'm just one young teenage girl writing, researching, producing, editing, and recording the show. Your support goes a long way. If you have topic ideas, questions, comments, animal facts, or unsettling stories you'd like to share, email me at mistress of the macabre podcast at gmail.com.