Dark Strangler — America’s First Known Serial Sex Killer

Earle Nelson was born Earle Leonard Ferral on May 12, 1897, in San Francisco, California. His mother and father died of syphilis while he was still a toddler and he went to live with his maternal grandmother, a devout Pentecostal with two children of her own.

In his early years, Nelson already exhibited the signs of self-loathing and a penchant for morbid curiosities. By the age of seven, he had been expelled from primary school for violent behavior. Somewhere around his tenth birthday, he had a collision with a streetcar that left him unconscious for almost a week. When he finally awoke, he continued to suffer from headaches, memory loss and exhibited erratic behavior such as talking to people who weren’t there, maniacally quoting the Bible, and sneaking in to watch female members of his family undress.

His grandmother said that he would often leave for school properly dressed, only to return in shredded, unkempt clothes with no explanation of how he came to be in such condition. He was obsessed with the Book of Revelation. By his early teens, he was already frequenting brothels and bars along the Barbary Coast red-light district in San Francisco. At some point during this time, he contracted a venereal disease.

By his eighteenth birthday, Nelson was already looking at a two-year stint in San Quentin State Prison for breaking into a cabin in a remote area of Plumas County. He claimed that he had believed it was abandoned. He began his stay in 1915 but was paroled early on September 6, 1916.

By March 9, 1917, he had been arrested again, this time for petty larceny. He was jailed for six months and then discharged, only to be arrested soon after for a Los Angeles burglary. He spent about five months in jail but escaped.

Nelson attempted to put his criminal past behind him by joining the military, but he deserted after only six weeks. He would continue this cycle of enlisting and then deserting several more times, using different aliases and joining different branches of the service.

In 1918, he was sent to the Napa State Mental Hospital by the U.S. Navy after he was observed behaving erratically while in service to them. The Navy psychologist recorded Nelson as “living in a continual psychotic state.”

The psychologist at the mental hospital noted that Nelson showed no indications that he was violent, homicidal, or destructive during a visit on May 21, 1918. Despite this initial assessment, he noted that Nelson had gone on to reveal many hallucinations and paranoid delusions to him. Nelson claimed he was seeing faces and hearing music that did not exist. He also believed he was being poisoned. He claimed to hear voices that were whispering for him to commit suicide.

Nelson told another psychiatrist that he would find a sharp object and cut his wrists if he were jailed again. During his therapy sessions, Nelson experienced headaches radiating up the back of his neck, fainted several times, and often felt dizzy.

Nelson was given the nickname “Houdini” after escaping several times. After bringing him back each time, they finally gave up on retrieving him the last time he disappeared. The Navy discharged him on May 17, 1919, and the hospital formally closed his file, saying he had “improved.”

Using the name “Evan Louis Fuller,” Nelson procured work as a janitor at St. Mary’s Hospital. It was there that he met Mary Martin, who was sixty years old — almost four decades older than him. They married in August 1919, but it didn’t last. Mary found him prone to jealousy, rage, delusion, religious zealotry, and bizarre sexual preferences. His increasingly violent behavior toward her led her to separate from him after only six months.

On May 19, 1921, Nelson entered a home on Pacific Avenue in San Francisco, under the guise of being a plumber. Once inside he attempted to molest a twelve-year-old girl but was chased out of the home by her brother after she screamed for help. Nelson fled but was tracked down and detained within hours as he rode the trolley. The subsequent competency hearing resulted in his being deemed dangerous and sent back to Napa State Mental Hospital, where he would escape two more times before being discharged in 1925.

February 20, 1926 — Nelson claimed his first victim. He entered the boarding house run by wealthy 60-year-old Clara Newman by posing as a potential tenant named Roger Wilson. Once they were alone, he strangled her and raped her post mortem before hiding her corpse in a vacant apartment in the house.

March 2, 1926 — Nelson entered the home of Laura Beale in nearby San Jose and strangled her with a silken cord. Investigators said that the cord was wound so tightly around her neck that it was embedded in her flesh.

June 26, 1926 — Nelson strangled and raped 63-year-old Lilliam St. Mary in San Francisco. Two weeks later, he would go on to murder 53-year-old Ollie Russell with a cord in her boardinghouse, once again raping his victim post mortem.

At this point, police were catching on that the similarities in the case meant this series of murders were the work of one man and Nelson was no doubt aware of this, as he waited until August 16, 1926, before murdering and then raping 52-year-old Mary Nisbet, an apartment building proprietor in Oakland. Her body was discovered by her husband, who was questioned by police as a possible suspect until witnesses provided statements that they had seen a “smiling stranger” lurking outside Nisbet’s apartment building the day of her murder.

The man they claimed to have seen was described as a dark man with a stocky build. They said he had “long arms and large hands.” This is when the local newspapers began calling him the “Dark Strangler,” “Gorilla Man,” and the “Gorilla Killer.”

With the heat turned up on him in the San Fransisco area, Nelson decided it was time to make a move. On October 19, 1926, he resurfaced in Portland, Oregon, where he murdered and raped 35-year-old landlady Beata Withers. Her son found her body in the attic, stuffed into a large trunk and covered with clothes.

The following day, 59-year-old Virginia Grant was murdered at a vacant house she owned. Her body was hidden away behind the home’s basement furnace. The day after that, landlady Mabel Fluke vanished. Her body was found several days later in the attic, strangled with a scarf. After this three-day murder spree, Nelson returned to San Fransisco, where he murdered and raped 56-year-old widow Anna Edmonds on November 19, 1926.

A witness described seeing a man at Edmonds’ home discussing the sale of her house on the day she had been murdered. Her description matched that of the man they had been calling the “Dark Strangler.”

The following day, a 28-year-old pregnant woman was attacked by a man posing as a potential buyer. She survived the attack and was able to give the police a description of the man. She said he was about 5 feet 8 inches tall, well dressed, and well-spoken. She told reporters that she’d seen him as non-threatening initially but in retrospect, she realized that he had been commenting on odd details like the ceiling in an effort to get her to look upward so he could catch her off guard and attack her.

On November 29, 1926, Nelson murdered and raped Blanche Myers in her Portland home. Police were able to lift fingerprints from Myers’ bedpost, giving them one more clue to move their case forward.

By this time, Portland newspapers had reported on the murders and their similarities, igniting a frenzy of phone calls and reports of a suspicious stranger. One woman claimed that a man had stayed at her boardinghouse over the Thanksgiving holiday using the name “Adrian Harris.” She said that on the day Myers’ was murdered, the man had told her he was leaving to catch a train to Vancouver, Washington, and wouldn’t be back. It sent up red flags since he had paid for many more days in advance and made no request for a refund. She showed police jewelry he had given her and another female boarder as a gift. Police confirmed that the items belonged to Florence Monks, one of his earlier Seattle victims.

Police in both Portland and San Francisco issued a public safety warning to their citizens. Elderly women were cautioned against inviting strangers into their homes for any reason, even offering to have an officer come out to accompany them if they needed to show a room for rent and had no one else to accompany them.

Meanwhile, Nelson had moved on to the Midwest and East Coast, hitchhiking and stowing away on trains.

December 23, 1926 — the body of 41-year-old Almira Berard was found inside her Council Bluffs, Iowa home. She had been strangled with a shirt. At first, her death was thought to be a suicide because she had recently been released from a psychiatric hospital. They began investigating it as a murder once they realized she had also been raped after her death.

December 27, 1926–23-year-old Bonnie Pace was strangled and raped in her Kansas City, Missouri home. She was discovered in an upstairs bedroom by her husband. On December 28, Nelson strangled 28-year-old Germania Harpin and her infant son, Robert. Germania had been raped after her death and Robert had been strangled with his own diaper. Germania’s husband found them when he returned to work that evening. This is the only known incident in which Nelson murdered a male victim or a young child.

Moving still further east, Nelson murdered and raped 53-year-old landlady Mary McConnell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on April 27, 1927. Several pieces of jewelry were stolen from her residence, one of which Nelson tried to sell unsuccessfully to a pawn shop the following day.

May 27, 1927 — Nelson rented a room in Buffalo, New York, from 53-year-old Jennie Randolph using the alias “Charles Harrison.” Randolph was found three days later. She had been strangled and raped, then stuffed under a bed in her home. Her brother, Gideon Gillett was able to describe to police, saying he had met him when he first arrived at the house. He said he was of stocky build, dark-complected, and had dark, slicked-back straight hair. Another boarder in the house would later identify Nelson as the man he had been introduced to as “Charles Harrison” at Randolph’s home.

June 1, 1927 — Fannie May and her boarder, Maureen Atorthy, were discovered murdered in the Detroit, Michigan boardinghouse that May managed. Their bodies were discovered by the house’s owner when he came by to collect rent funds. Both women had been garroted with a cord cut off a table lamp. Because this had been done while the lamp was still on, police knew that the knife used would show both black markings from the electricity and knicks in the blade.

June 3, 1927 — Nelson murdered 27-year-old Mary Cecilia Sietsma in Chicago, Illinois. Similar to the previous murder, she had been strangled with an appliance cord. Several items of menswear had been taken from the home.

June 8, 1927 — Nelson had moved north to Canada where 14-year-old Lola Cowan was discovered missing while selling flowers door to door in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Police were still looking for Cowan when Emily Patterson went missing on June 10. Patterson was found later that evening by her husband. She had been strangled, bludgeoned with a claw hammer, and raped before being stuffed under her son’s bed. Her husband found her there when he knelt by the bed to say his evening prayers. Several items were missing from the house, including a whipcord suit, the victim’s gold wedding band, the family bible, and seven ten-dollar bills. The knife used in the May and Artorthy murders was also found.

The ring taken from the Patterson home was found to have been sold to a local jeweler and the suit was found at a secondhand store. The owners of each store were able to identify Nelson as the man who had sold them. Nelson had also gotten a shave, haircut, and massage at a barbershop next door to the secondhand store on June 10 according to the barber there, who also indicated that he had found dried blood and scratch marks on the man’s scalp. The barber says he asked about them, which caused the customer to become agitated and demand that he not touch them.

Following Nelson’s trail of carnage, police investigated the home of August Hill where Nelson had recently stayed. Searching the room he had rented there, police discovered the nude and mutilated body of Cowan under the bed. Her clothing and possessions were absent and the bed had been slept in, presumably while the corpse lay beneath the bed.

The Winnipeg City Council posted a $1,500 reward for any information leading to Nelson’s capture. Canadian police sent descriptions of Nelson to the United States in case Nelson had fled back across the border. Sightings of Nelson began being reported from Regina, Saskatchewan, and Boissevain, Manitoba.

On June 16, 1927, a man going by the name Virgil Wilson who fit the description of Nelson was arrested in Killarney near Manitoba. They were doubtful that they had the right man because he seemed so calm and collected, cooperating with them fully. They placed him in the local jail, but he managed to escape the very same evening. However, he attempted to catch a train that was transporting some members of the Winnipeg police force.

His mistake would cost him his freedom, landing him back behind bars within twelve hours of his escape after being arrested by an officer with the Crystal City Police Department about 47 miles east of Wakopa. From there, he was transported to a station in Winnipeg where he was photographed, fingerprinted, measured, and prepared for a lineup. Thousands of spectators gathered outside to catch a glimpse of him.

The photographs taken by the station were sent to police in the United States, resulting in further identifications being made by multiple witnesses. His fingerprints matched those left behind at several crime scenes. Molds of his teeth matched tooth imprints left on some of the victims.

When asked about his crimes by reporters, Nelson flippantly replied “I only do my lady killings on Saturday nights.”

However, he would later claim he was innocent of all charges, and the people who identified him were all wrong. Police were unable to coax a confession to even a single crime from him and he was taken to trial in Winnipeg for his crimes there. His ex-wife Mary testified to the court that he was completely insane. Sixty other individuals from both Canada and the United States testified at his trial. One witness, a jail guard, who guarded Nelson during his incarceration testified that Nelson was obsessed with a particular passage from the bible — Proverbs 23:26–28.

Nelson's trial came to a close on November 5, 1927. It took only forty minutes for a jury to sentence him to death. Members of his final two victims’ families visited him in prison in search of answers but he continued to proclaim his innocence to them.

Nelson’s lawyer petitioned for clemency on the grounds of insanity, saying that his client’s personal history had been misrepresented to the jury via the press during trial. More than twenty affidavits were presented to substantiate the claim of mental incapacity, but in the end, the appeal was denied and Nelson was scheduled for execution.

On January 13, 1928, at 7:30 a.m., just under two years from the date of his first murder, Earle Nelson was hanged at the Vaughan Street Jail in Winnipeg. His final words were, “I forgive those who have wronged me.”

Nelson was the first serial killer in American history who was so widely covered by the press as such. The number of murders he committed, at least twenty two confirmed, would remain a record for nearly fifty years until the Juan Corona crimes in 1971.

Nelson is considered the first serial sex murderer in America during the twentieth century. His crimes were the source of inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1943 film, Shadow of Doubt.