The Dark Strangler: Serial Killer Earle Leonard Nelson (Crimes Canada: True Crimes That Shocked the Nation Book 9) Read online

  No legal rule in force worldwide today considers psychopaths "insane" within the limits of prevailing law. Members of that class are well aware when their behavior violates a given statute. They are conscious of the legal penalties—at least in general, if not specifically—but they do not expect to be discovered, apprehended, placed on trial.

  In short, they simply do not care.

  Emily Patterson

  It came as no surprise to anyone, therefore, when jurors found Earle Nelson guilty as charged of Emily Patterson's murder on Friday, November 4, 1927. Justice Dysart heard that verdict and immediately sentenced Earle to die. Dysart granted Nelson sixty days for an appeal—denied—and penciled in his date with death for January 13, 1928, excluding legal holidays and weekends. After Manitoba's Court of Appeals rejected his final bid for life, Earle launched a last-ditch publicity campaign from death row, sitting for interviews with journalists and pleading innocence on all the charges lodged against him. He also met with Lola Cowan's mother, but maintained the fiction that she died at someone else's hand.

  In Canada, hanging was the only mode of execution utilized from 1763, when France surrendered its northern holdings to Britain, until lawmakers banned capital punishment in July of 1976. During those 213 years, 1,481 defendants were condemned to hang and 719 actually mounted the gallows, including 697 men and 13 women. When carried out in an institutional setting—as opposed to lawless lynchings—authorities either construct or perpetually maintain a gallows platform mounted by stairs, with a trapdoor in its center to be opened by the executioner upon command. Before that happens, there are various procedures to observe: testing the subject's weight and measuring the rope, then fashioning the hangman's noose—a slip knot with six to eight coils, usually cinched behind the condemned inmate's left ear.

  Ideally, when the trapdoor opens, the person being executed drops just far enough to have a broken neck produce unconsciousness before the noose completes its work of stifling the brain of oxygen. A rope too long may rip the subject's head off, while a length too short produces thrashing strangulation with the subject fully conscious until death, a bleak experience for both the prisoner and for spectators chosen by the court. The bottom line, however, is that hanging strangles its selected victims, whether they are conscious or oblivious—perhaps ironic, or a bit of karma in Earle Nelson's case.

  Winnipeg's Vaughn Street Jail—the provincial capital's oldest public building, built in 1881—had seen its motley share of rogues before Earle Nelson came along. Vagrants and thieves, some as young as five years old, were caged with murderers and rapists in the latter 19th century, as were Big Bear and Poundmaker, two First Nations leaders of Canada's North-West Rebellion in 1885. Another famous inmate, John Queen, jailed during the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, spent a year behind bars for "seditious conspiracy," was elected as a member of the legislative assembly while incarcerated, and later served as Winnipeg's mayor from 1935 to 1936, then again from 1937 to 1942.

  There would be no happy ending for Earle Nelson, though. When jailers came for him on Friday, January 13, 1928, he offered no resistance, walking meekly to the execution chamber. There, he mounted the gallows steps unaided and faced the spectators below him. Before the noose was placed over his head and he was hooded to disguise the last contortions of his dying face, he told that group, "I am innocent. I stand innocent before God and man. I forgive those who have wronged me and ask forgiveness of those I have injured. God have mercy!"

  The trap sprang at 7:30 a.m., and the "Dark Strangler" dropped into space. A possible miscalculation in the rope's length left Earle twitching for a quarter of an hour, before he finally hung slack and still, with death pronounced by an attending physician at 7:45. Today, some wags debate the nature of that accident, suggesting that the short rope was intentional, but who can say?

  Whatever debts accrue in life, for good or ill, the "Gorilla Murderer's" were paid.

  Chapter 8

  * * *

  German journalist and sociologist Siegfried Kracauer (1889-1966) coined the term "serial murder" five years before his death, although such crimes undoubtedly predate recorded history. As long as human beings have inhabited our planet, they have killed each other wantonly, repeatedly—in combat and religious rituals; for turf and sustenance; in the pursuit of politics; enforcing social mores, with or without legal sanction; acting out of hatred, greed, or jealousy; and sometimes for the simple hell of it, as "sport." The latter class of homicides—dubbed "motiveless" in modern times, although psychiatrists insist that there are always motives—rank as the most difficult to solve and understand.

  Contrary to some reports, Earle Nelson was neither North America's first nor its worst serial murderer. Among those who preceded and often exceeded him, before his pastime had a name, we find:

  Micajah and Wiley Harpe, deadly brothers or cousins (accounts differ), who roamed the 18th-century frontier, killing for pleasure and profit until they were captured and slain in 1799 and 1804, respectively.

  Simon Girty, "The White Savage," adopted by Seneca tribal kidnappers in Pennsylvania, later a Tory partisan during the American Revolution and an ally of native tribesmen in the Northwest Indian War of 1785 to 1795, who enjoyed torturing captives. He escaped punishment and settled in Ontario, Canada, remaining there until his death in 1818, at age seventy-seven.

  Martha "Patty" Cannon, leader of the Cannon-Johnson Gang in Maryland and Delaware, which kidnapped free blacks and sold them in the South as slaves. Sexually aroused by torture of black men, she was jailed in 1829, after authorities found four skeletons buried on her property, and she died in prison while awaiting trial for murder.

  Maureen Delphine Lalaurie, a Louisiana-born socialite whose torture and murder of slaves was revealed after fire razed her mansion in 1834. She fled New Orleans for Europe and evaded arrest, reportedly dying in Europe sometime around 1842.

  Felipe Nerio Espinosa, a Mexican-American blamed for thirty-two slayings in Colorado Territory during the summer of 1863. That spree ended when a posse overtook Espinosa and a teenage cousin, killing and decapitating both of them without benefit of trial.

  John "Liver-eating" Johnston, a mountain man who sought revenge on native tribesmen for murdering his pregnant wife in 1847. Some estimates place his body count above 300, with most of his victims scalped and dismembered, while Johnston ate their livers raw. His story, greatly sanitized to cast him as a heroic figure, was filmed by Hollywood in 1972, with Robert Redford starring in the title role as Jeremiah Johnson (sic).

  Boone Helm, an alcoholic mountain man, gunfighter, and sometime cannibal who killed at least eleven victims—some say twenty-four—in the American West and British Columbia between 1850 and 1864, when he was hanged at age thirty-six.

  Martha Grinder, "The Pittsburgh Lucrezia Borgia," hanged in 1866 for poisoning a tenant whom she pretended to nurse while ailing. In custody, she confessed to killing her maid, as well, and was suspected of slaying various other friends and relatives.

  Lydia Sherman, "The Derby Poisoner," slayer of three husbands and several children left in her care at Burlington, New Jersey, between 1858 and 1871. Convicted of murder in 1872, she died in prison six years later, at age fifty-four.

  The Bloody Benders, a murderous family of four who killed and robbed at least eleven travelers at their wayside inn, in Labette County, Kansas, between 1869 and 1872. Before their crimes were discovered, they fled the district and allegedly escaped, although rumors persist that a posse later tracked them down and lynched all four.

  Jesse Pomeroy, "The Boy Torturer," a Boston resident who began attacking younger children at age twelve, in 1871. Two of his victims died in 1874 and Pomeroy was convicted, serving fifty-eight years in prison before his death, in 1932.

  Joseph Lapage, "The Headsman," a French Canadian woodcutter who raped and murdered two New England women in 1874 and 1875, decapitating one victim. He was convicted and hanged at Concord, New Hampshire, in 1878.

  Thomas Pip
er, "The Boston Belfry Murderer," sexton at the Warren Avenue Baptist Church, who bludgeoned and raped three young girls between 1873 and 1875, the youngest victim being five years old. Upon conviction, he was hanged in 1876.

  Stephen Lee Richards, "The Nebraska Fiend," who confessed to six robbery-motivated murders in 1878 and was suspected of three more. Authorities hanged him in 1879.

  Sarah Jane Robinson, "The Massachusetts Borgia," fed arsenic to her husband, son, and nine other victims between 1881 and 1887, cashing in on their life insurance policies. Sentenced to hang in 1888, she was spared when five hundred citizens signed a clemency petition, finally dying from natural causes in prison, in 1906.

  Jane Toppan, a Boston nurse who confessed to poisoning thirty-one victims for sexual gratification, between 1885 and 1901. Jurors acquitted her on grounds of insanity and she was confined to a mental hospital, where she died in 1938 at age eighty-one, Toppan said her ambition was "to have killed more people—helpless people—than any other man or woman who ever lived."

  The "Servant Girl Annihilator," a still-unidentified slayer who used an axe to kill at least seven domestic servants in Austin, Texas, during 1884 and 1885.

  The Kelly Family, emulators of the "Bloody Benders," who offered lodgings to travelers at their ranch near Oak City, Kansas, then dropped victims through a trapdoor, killing and robbing eleven between September and December 1887. Like the Benders, William Kelly, his wife, and two children fled when their crimes were suspected, but vigilantes trailed them to Texas and lynched all four killers.

  Sarah Jane Whiteling, "The Wholesale Poisoner," a Philadelphia resident who killed her husband and two children with rat poison at one-month intervals in 1888. Upon conviction, she was hanged in June 1889, at age forty-one.

  Herman Webster Mudgett, alias "Dr. Henry Howard Holmes," a sadist and life insurance scam artist who victimized criminal associates, women and children, between 1888 and 1894. Many of his victims were young females visiting Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, who rented rooms from Mudgett. Prior to execution in May 1896, Mudgett confessed to twenty-seven murders, but speculation continues that he may have killed nearly ten times that number in his Chicago "murder castle," complete with acid vats, gas chambers, and a dissecting table.

  Harry T. Hayward, "The Minneapolis Svengali," a gambler, swindler, serial arsonist and sometime killer for hire, hanged in December 1895 for the contract murder of a female victim one year earlier. Prior to execution, Hayward confessed three additional slayings.

  Theodore Durrant, "The Demon of the Belfry," assistant superintendent of San Francisco's Emanuel Baptist Church, who raped and strangled two women in 1895, hiding their corpses inside the church. He was hanged at San Quentin in January 1898, at age twenty-seven.

  The "New York Strangler," blamed for throttling six women in Manhattan between 1896 and 1898. One victim survived but could not identify her attacker. Police charged sailor John Brown with one of the crimes in 1898, but jurors acquitted him, leaving the case unsolved.

  Louise Vermilyea, a "black widow" poisoner accused of killing seven relatives and two boarders with arsenic for monetary gain, in Chicago, between 1893 and 1911. Accused of murder in 1911, she attempted suicide by poison but survived as a paralytic, the charges later dismissed since she was unfit for trial.

  Edward Walton, confessed slayer of two men and three women in five U.S. states between 1896 and 1908, when he was hanged for killing his common-law wife.

  Belle Sorenson Gunness, "black widow" killer of at least twenty-five relatives and prospective suitors between 1884 and 1908, most of them at her farm in La Porte, Indiana. To evade detection, she staged her own death in a fire at her home and escaped, her final date and whereabouts of death unknown. Some estimates place her ultimate body count above forty victims.

  Ottilie "Tillie" Klimek, a.k.a. "Tillie Gburek," a Polish-American resident of Chicago who feigned psychic powers, "predicting" the deaths of three husbands she killed between 1914 and 1921. Convicted in 1923, she died in prison thirteen years later, at age sixty.

  William "Billy" Gohl, a seaman's union officer in Aberdeen, Washington, suspected of killing numerous sailors—some reports claim 100-plus—who stored belongings with him for safekeeping at the union office between 1902 and 1910. Convicted on two murder counts in 1910, Gohl escaped hanging when jurors recommended mercy. Tertiary syphilis killed him in prison seventeen years later, at age fifty-four.

  Amy Archer-Gilligan, proprietress of a nursing home in Windsor, Connecticut, who poisoned four patients and her husband for their life insurance between 1910 and 1917. Arrested in the latter year, she pled not guilty by reason of insanity, blaming her mother's addiction to morphine. Jurors convicted her of second-degree murder, resulting in a life sentence. She died in prison at age ninety-three, in April 1962.

  The "Atlanta Ripper," a slasher of African American prostitutes in Atlanta, Georgia, believed to have been black himself, but never officially identified. Various accounts blame the killer for fifteen to twenty-one unsolved murders during 1911.

  Texas-Louisiana Axe Murders, claiming the lives of forty-nine mulatto victims across two states during 1911 and 1912. The killer or killers invaded homes by night, slaughtering whole families in their sleep. Two black members of the so-called "Sacrifice Church" were allegedly charged with one attack in 1912, but disposition of their case remains unclear from newspaper accounts and public records.

  Midwest Axe Murders, also committed during 1911 and 1912, targeted white families with fifteen attacks claiming twenty-plus victims. Suspect Henry Lee Moore was convicted of one double slaying, involving his mother and grandmother in Missouri, which prompted federal agent M. W. McClaughry to theorize that Moore committed the other slayings as well, but no further charges were filed against him and the other crimes remain officially unsolved today.

  The "Axeman of New Orleans," blamed for a series of nocturnal home invasions during 1918 and 1919, claiming five lives and leaving seven more victims injured. Speculation regarding three similar killings in 1911 remains unsupported by fact. Two suspects charged with the final attack were convicted at trial, then pardoned when the key witness against them admitted lying under oath. Speculation surrounds suspect Joseph Mumfre, later murdered by the widow of an Axeman victim, but no evidence links him to the crimes.

  Prior to coinage of the term "serial murder" in 1961—not in 1974 by an FBI agent, as some authors suggest—compulsive repeat killers were normally labeled "homicidal maniacs" and lumped together as "mass murderers." In 1959, criminologist and author James Melvin Reinhardt anticipated Siegfried Kracauer's later turn of phrase by dubbing his subjects "chain killers"—a reference to their victims appearing like links in a chain. Still, recognition of the so-called "new" phenomena demanded more analysis, to understand why habitual killers strike repeatedly, often at strangers, and to determine how they choose their victims.

  In 1988, FBI psychological profilers Robert K. Ressler and John E. Douglas joined Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess, professor of psychiatric mental health nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, to publish their findings from an epic four-year study of imprisoned sex killers. Titled Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives, that volume dissected the crimes and motives of thirty-six prison inmates convicted of sexually-motivated murderers born between 1904 and 1958, whose crimes had claimed a total of 118 victims. When viewed today, some of those findings may appear outdated—all of the killers surveyed were male, and all but three were white—but the data still remains instructive.

  First in line for study came the killers' childhood attributes, determining that four were only children, while twenty more were eldest sons. Earle Nelson conformed to that extent, although the loss of both parents in infancy removed him from the 57 percent with both parents initially present, and from the 52 percent listing their mothers as a "housewife." Where 74 percent of the killers surveyed reported a stable family income, with 86 percent claiming their families lived at a s
elf-sufficient economic level, Earle could claim that status only after living with his grandmother, then with his aunt, Lillian Fiban. Finally, between his head injuries, mood swings, and the possibility of congenital syphilis, Earle likely would not fit with the 80 percent of known slayers judged to have "average or better" intelligence.

  The killers surveyed by Ressler, Douglas, and Dr. Burgess reported stranger histories once they began to describe family background characteristics. As reported in Sexual Homicide, 69 percent claimed a "family history of problems," including alcoholism (33 percent), drug abuse (53 percent), psychiatric problems (50 percent), and sexual problems (46 percent). Forty-two percent of those interviewed claimed physical abuse as children, while 74 percent noted psychological abuse.

  Concerning relationships with their parents, 68 percent complained of unstable residency (frequent moves), 47 percent reported fathers leaving the family home before the subjects were twelve years old, 66 percent labeled their mothers the dominant parent, 72 percent claimed negative relationships with caregiver figures (44 percent with their mothers specifically), 53 percent believed they were treated unfairly as children, and 44 percent had no older sibling role models.

  Earle Nelson, at least in his own mind, denied any such problems. Despite loss of both parents in infancy, their prenatal infection with syphilis, and his grandmother's religious fanaticism, when speaking of his later life's outcome, he said, "I do not believe it was either nature or nurture. I think I was raised well, and born normal."

  There is no denying Earle's conformance to certain childhood sexual experiences reported by members of the FBI's imprisoned survey sample. While he mentioned no childhood molestation or personal observations of "disturbing sex" within the families that raised him as an orphan, Earle clearly matched other criteria. Of the thirty-six men interviewed, 42 percent claimed childhood sexual injury or disease. Leaving aside the possibility that Earle was born with congenital syphilis, we know that he carried both syphilis and gonorrhea when he joined the U.S. Army in 1919, both probably contracted from San Francisco prostitutes before he entered prison four years earlier. Those contacts qualify as the childhood "consenting sex" reported by 44 percent of the FBI's sample, while statements from his relatives confirm Earle's involvement in voyeurism (71 percent of those surveyed), enjoying pornography (81 percent), and autoerotic practices (79 percent).