In our last episode, we began telling the story of Earl Nelson, aka the Gorilla Killer, so be sure to listen to part one and join us today as we carry on with part two. So with that being said, my name's Ben, I'm.
Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and Grim, a true crime podcast. Warning.
The following podcast and material intended for matial audience. Listener discretion is advised.
I'm gonna need a recap. It's been a long week.
Okay, Part one The Gorilla Killer. There you go, there's your recap.
Okay, I mean you're ready, just like that. That name alone does like make you recall a lot of things, because it really does.
It's a bit unique, it is, honestly, it's it's a very interesting name, but of course it comes because of his physical feature. Yeah, I do have a recap for you. Do you want to just dive into it and get right into it. I can do that, or do you have anything you want to start with first?
I don't know. We just did a pre show or on Patreon and we were literally just talking about food because we've been healthy eating. So I think we should just dive right in.
Okay, before we start talking about fried chicken and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, all right, Okay, I'm going to get right into the recap. Then here we go.
So up until this point, we've followed Earl Nelson from the very beginning of his life, from a troubled childhood to a serious head injury, two years of instability, arrests, and time spent in and out of different institutions showing it his life never really found any kind of solid structure, and by nineteen twenty five he was on his own, moving between cities, using different names and blending into wherever he went. Then by nineteen twenty six, that's when everything shifted.
Women renting out rooms began turning up dead in their own homes, all under nearly identical circumstances. He would show up looking for a place to stay, gain their trust, and then get them alone, and when that occurred, then he attacked, strangling them to death. Now, at first, investigators treated each case as isolated events, different cities, different investigators, no clear connection. But as the murders continued in the
pattern became harder to ignore. That's when it started to become clear that some of these things were not random. They soon realized they were dealing with someone who was moving from city to city, staying ahead of their investigation and leaving behind just enough to suggest there could be a connection between these events, but never enough to stop him in time, and by the end of nineteen twenty
six the situation was only getting worse. But in November of nineteen twenty six, someone would survive an encounter with Earl aka the Gorilla Killer and was able to tell police all about it. And that is where we left off.
Okay, right, he did have a very unique but rough upbringing, Yes he did. That was, Yeah, that was interesting to listen to. But still that's no excuse to be this kind of monster that he had totully turned into.
For sure, And outside of the head injury he sustained, there's no like one specific thing that you can say that was the indicator for what you become. Even the head injury, you can't fully blame that. So it's very interesting. It's like this culmination of so many things and potentially who he was to start with.
Yeah, and then I had forgotten that this happened in the nineteen twenties or around there, So very difficult for you know, solving any type of thing like this exactly.
That's a big part of this story because nineteen twenties, you know, the communication between cities and everything identifying patterns is a big, massive, glaring hole in society, and it allowed him to actually go through with many of these killings.
It makes sense how it was, I guess able to do all this, which sucks.
Yes, And even in part one, as investigators started to like put the pieces together, it's like, okay, some of these are related. Many of them were not connected until like much later still, because there's just too much to go with, okay. So even so they were starting to slowly kind of catch on, much of it was still just wide open and unknown.
Cal I am very interested to hear about this person that survives, Okay, so come on, Well, you made us wait long enough. Well.
It was in San Jose, California, where a woman named Miss Murray, who had been several months pregnant at the time, would encounter a man who approached her in the same sort of way that others had described. He presented himself as someone who was looking for a room and was allowed to take a look inside at the accommodations being offered. The situation started off normally enough, but it didn't end the same way as all the others. At some point
during their interaction, well, he attempted to attack her. However, instead of being overpowered immediately, she fought back fiercely, and in doing so, she managed to leave visible scratch marks on his face during the struggle. Yeah, this scratches were deep enough and done hard enough to actually drawn blood.
Okay, and she was also pregnant.
She was pregnant.
Wow. So yeah, Well, I mean she had a lot to fight for I guess right for sure, Not that the others didn't, but you know what I mean. Yeah.
Now, the attack broke down quickly after that, and he fled the scene before could escalate any further her. So, for the very first time, there was a victim who had survived an attack from the Gorilla Killer, and they could describe not just the man's appearance, but the interaction itself with him. Now, her account added something investigators hadn't had before. See, it wasn't just a description of someone entering a house or being seen leaving like the other cases.
In this case, she was able to confirm how he approached the victims, how he behaved once he was inside, and how quickly the situation shifted from normal conversation into violence. She also told investigators that she had in fact injured him with those scratches.
Well, yeah, and an injury that you couldn't really hide exactly.
So now there's this chance that the culprit is moving about through the public with visible injuries on his face. Someone might notice that and could hey point it out to investigators or police. Now this was a small shift, but it mattered a lot, and the investigation had its first real break, But it still wasn't enough to identify
him or even stop him. In fact, they were always working backwards up until this point, trying to understand what had already happened, rather than stopping what was about to happen. But that began to shift with the new information they had, and as new cases appeared towards the end of nineteen twenty six. On November twenty third of that year, in Seattle, Florence Monks was found dead inside her home. Like the early victims, she had been renting out rooms and had
allowed someone inside. The attack followed the same structure of being in private. It was very controlled and it was over quickly, which meant by the time her body was discovered, the man responsible was already long gone. However, something stood out about this case, and it was that something was missing. See, some of her personal belongings, including pieces of jewelry, had been taken. Now, some theft had actually been noted in some of the earlier cases as well, but it hadn't
been treated as anything more than a secondary detail. But now it started to take on a bit more importance in this story. Also around the same time, another case began to offer something more concrete. In Portland. During the investigation into the killing of Blanche Meyers, investigators were able to recover fingerprints from the scene. Now, at the time, fingerprinting was still becoming a standard tool in criminal investigations, but it had already proven useful in identifying suspects when
a match could actually be made. In this case, the prints were clear enough to be preserved and documented, but they still had no match to them without an existing record to compare it against. The fingerprints didn't lead anywhere immediately. They were stored, cataloged and held as evidence, waiting for future moments when they might be useful.
So super cool, but it's not like they have much of a database.
Exactly, so they have something that it might be useful later on.
Yeah.
Now, taken together, these developments began to change some things. For the first time, there was a combination of elements that could potentially move things forward. You have a surviving witness, You have stolen property that could maybe be traced, and physical evidence that could one day identify a person responsible if they had prints to compare. None of it solved the case on its own, but it was something Even Still, the same problem remained. Though every new piece of evidence
came from a place that he had already left. They were still following a trail, and he still wasn't done. On December twenty third, nineteen twenty six, in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Almira Barrard, a woman who rented out rooms in her home, was found dead. Just as in the earlier cases, she had allowed someone inside. There had been a struggle and she had been strangled, and of course by the time anyone realized what had happened, the person responsible was once again gone.
I'm very unhappy because I was thinking the fact that you were, like, yes, someone survived, that we were done with all these all all of these victims. Just how many has he killed at this point? Like so many?
We'll get to numbers at the end. Don't worry.
Okay, it's tough to listen to you though, because it's and it's so easy of how he just gets in there and figure it out this way. So I don't love that. Well.
Only a few days later, the same pattern appeared again in Kansas City, Missouri. There, Bonnie Pace, a young woman who also took in borders, was killed under nearly identical circumstances. She led a man into her home and the interaction turned violent. Once they were alone, she was strangled and items were taken from the house before the attacker left. In the same city, within that same period of time,
two more victims were connected in the same sequence. Jermania harpin another landlady was found dead along with her young son.
Oh.
Now, this child had also been killed, making him the only male victim connected to this series of murders. But each victim had been approached in the same way that didn't immediately raise suspicion. Each allowed a man inside. Each had been attacked quickly, in private and without a witness present. Now what stood out just as much as the method now was also the pace of the attacks. There was
very little time in between these incidents. He wasn't staying in one place, and he wasn't slowing down by any means. He moved from city to city, committing a killing and then leaving before the investigation had even fully begun where that killing just occurred. He was on a full out spree.
Yeah, he's out of control.
And by the time authority started working on one scene, he was already somewhere else, repeating that same pattern and staying one step ahead.
You have to wonder, too, I'm betting anything as he's going into houses to other houses and there's like a husband there or something, or he's or someone there, that he's not able to commit the crime. So I bet you there's a lot of potential victims too that he just had to move on from one hundred percent. You're right, yeah, I guarantee, which is really scary too.
Now, by early nineteen twenty seven, the investigation had reached a point where none could deny the pattern, but authorities were still working with fragments and trying to communicate back and forth between all these jurisdictions. California had its cases Oregon had its own cluster. Washington, Iowa, and Missouri each had incidents that fit the same structure, but those connections they needed to take a lot of time to form.
Information moved extremely slow, and finally, by the time one department began to suspect a link, well, he was already just moving on to the next place. In fact, in April of nineteen twenty seven, a woman named Mary McConnell was found dead in Philadelphia. She'd been living in a home where rooms were rented out, and she allowed someone inside and it ended in strangulation. There were signs of
a struggle and items from miss from the scene. Once again, a month later, on May thirtieth, nineteen twenty seven, in Buffalo, New York, another woman, Jenny Randolph, was killed under nearly identical circumstances. Once again, the details match, but they'd already seen across multiple states. The method, the setting, and the approach were all consistent with the earlier cases. Then within
days the pattern appeared once again. In early June of nineteen twenty seven, killings were reported in both Detroit and Chicago, each following the very same sequence. A man looking for a room, a private interaction an attack, and then just as quickly he was gone. Investigators across several different cities were now working with descriptions that matched very closely, and they were desperately trying to bring this reign of terror
to an end. Now he was a stocky man, often described as being in his late twenties or early thirties, with large hands and a quiet demeanor, the same kind of man that had been seen in San Francis, in Portland and Seattle and now cities across the Midwest and the East. However, as difficult as it was, there had been a bit of a break coming into this case regarding evidence from earlier cases. See, as we know, there were items that had been taken from victims, things like
jewelry and other personal belongings. They were beginning to be traced through pawnshops, okay, and through that witnesses recalled seeing a man or selling and carrying items that didn't belong to him.
Okay, because this is how he is affording life, basically stealing people's jewelry or.
Whatever, Yes, exactly, so, then he's pawning it off and using it for food, room board, all these sort of things, and travel to the next city.
Yeah, no kidding, okay, And though.
Looking back in this case from our perspective now, it's very easy to understand that this was one man committing all of these acts. I mean, we have all the information right now. But as for authorities learning the description of this man being the same in the pawn shop, all learning all this in real time, basically, that's where they began to really understand that they were not dealing
with multiple offenders or even a loosely connected group of crimes. Like, sure, these situations might seem similar, but this is the moment where they learned that they were in fact dealing with one individual who's connecting them all together, and he was in fact moving across the country, repeating the same method city after city, because not only do you have the same description from multiple locations, but you also have the same description from pawnshops when items from these places are
turning up. So it was kind of the final check mark on the list to say, holy shit, this is the same man.
Yeah, I know, us sitting here listening to all the details. It's kind of like, how did you not figure that out sooner?
But well it was.
It's it's time too, yeah, the fact that he is in a different area. Almost every murder.
Yeah, so you have different county in different states and different cities. How can you be sure of a murder occurring in this one is the same in that one. They probably don't even know the murder occurred in the other state until like a month or two later when reports finally come across or newspaper articles talk about it and someone happens to see it.
Well, and yeah, and these poor souls too aren't even don't have social media or ways of even realizing that they're probably in as much danger as they are too, Like the women who are renting out rooms.
Yeah, the civilians and stuff, how do they really know? Yeah, So authorities are trying to warn cities and stuff and saying, hey, this guy's in the area. But by the time they're warning that city, he's late. He's already in a whole new city where people you're not warning are being targeted.
Just so brutally sad.
Yeah, And so this whole realization that it was this one culprit, it changed the whole scope of the case. It was no longer about solving a single murder or even a cluster of them. It was about identifying and stopping someone who was clearly traveling, freely, crossing all these jurisdictions and leaving behind a trail of death in his wake. The investigation had finally caught up to the idea of what was happening, but it hadn't caught up to the
man responsible. By early June of nineteen twenty seven, after moving through cities across the United States, Earl Nelson made a different move. He crossed the border and arrived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, sometime in the first week of June. As he had done in every other city, he presented himself as an
ordinary man looking for a place to stay. He used an alias and began approaching boarding houses asking for available rooms, and on June eighth, nineteen twenty seven, a fourteen year old girl named Lola Cohen suddenly went missing.
Oh okay, so he's just finding a new area entirely.
Exactly a whole new country even.
Oh, I hate this so much now.
Lola had worked as a flower girl selling flowers on the street, and she'd been last seen going about her usual routine. When she didn't return, concern grew fast. At first, it wasn't immediately connected to anything. Larger missing persons cases, especially involving young people, were not unheard of at the time, but as time passed, the situation began to feel a lot more serious, and two days later, on June tenth,
another incident brought everything into sharper focus. Emily Patterson, a woman who also rented out rooms in her home, was attacked. Like the others before her. She had allowed a man inside under the assumption that he was looking for a place to stay, but that interaction suit followed the same horrific pattern. But Emily fought back now because of that. During the struggle, she managed to resist long enough to
leave physical evidence behind. She pulled hair from her attacker and created enough disruption that the encounter didn't unfold the same way it previously had in other situations. Now the attack was still very much so violent and aultimately Emily was still killed as a.
Result, oh seriously, but.
Unlike most of the earlier cases, there was something tangible left behind that investigators could use.
Now.
By this point in time, the connection between the individuals in Winnipeg and the earlier cases in the United States was beginning to occur. The method in Canada was the same as it was in the USA. The approach was the same, and now within the same area, you have
two events that police had seen before. The connection was undeniable, and so police quickly began searching the boarding houses in the area, knowing the pattern of this individual, and at one of those houses, investigators were led to a room that had been recently occupied by a man using an alias, a man who fit that description. And when they searched that room, they found what they were looking for. Lola Cohen, the missing fourteen year old girl, was found dead and
shoved under the bed. I was not expecting that she had been strangled to death.
Holy shit. And he's just hiding her where he's staying.
Yep, well he's not staying there anymore. He's already gone, but he stayed there.
And he left behind the souvenir of a body.
Yeah, basically, whoo okay.
I also just have to say that is like so badass of that one woman to like pull a clump of hair out of someone's head. You gotta fight, Well, yeah, that's that is like she really did put up a fight. That's incredible.
And I'm not saying that's these victims, some of them were not fighting. All I'm saying is, if all you have is to rip out hair, do it. If all you have is to bite, do it. If all you have is to grab hold of flesh and dig nails in, do it.
Well. I mean, each scenario is just so different, right. It depends how caught off guard the victim is and exactly the size difference and stuff.
So for sure, just do anything you can. It's important. It could be your survival could mean catching someone. Even if you unfortunately do not survive.
They're gonna save other people exactly. Now.
For investigators, this officially meant her story wasn't just a local case anymore. It was in fact a part of the same pattern that had been appearing across the United States, and it was now unfolding in their own city. The difference, however, this time, was the person responsible hadn't completely disappeared before the connection was made. There was in fact still a window, small but very much so real. He might still be
in the city, He might still be within reach. They caught up to him fast enough, so police began moving quickly through the information they had, and investigators started retracing his steps, speaking to anyone who might have interacted with him in any sort of the days leading up to this discovery.
This is good because this has been a rarity, right.
Exactly, So this is good. They had this one chance, this one shot, one opportunity. Sorry, I'm in an eminem reference, but oh, I was like, that is from something else, legitimate though, that is the case. A barber came forward recalling a customer who had recently come in with noticeable injuries. He had scratches on his freight, on his face, fresh enough in fact, that they stood out to him immediately. Now, he didn't think too much about it at the time.
When you look at it in hindsight, well, there was a bit of a different meaning. This person who had just killed while they were attacked, their victim fought back.
Those scratches were most definitely left behind in that scenario. Now, around the same time, more items began to surface, more stolen items jewelry that had been taken from victims in earlier cases was traced through local pawnshops again, and pawnbrokers and store owners described a man who had come in to sell or exchange items that didn't quite fit his appearance or situation. Now, with each new piece of information, the description of the suspect became more and more specific.
It wasn't anything so broadly described anymore as just a stocky man. It was a man with recent facial scratches, moving under an alias, carrying stolen items, and renting rooms and boarding houses shortly before violent incidents occur. Now police issued descriptions to surrounding areas and began coordinating with nearby towns, something that hadn't been done effectively in early stages of
this investigation. And by the middle of June nineteen twenty seven, the search had officially extended beyond Winnipeg and into the surrounding region, with attention focused on the possibility that he might try and leave the area, and on June fifteenth, nineteen twenty seven, that possibility became a reality. Now, near the town of Wacopa, Manitoba, close to the United States border, a man was stopped by local authorities. He identified himself as a man named Virgil Wilson, which was one of
the aliases that had begun to surface during the investigation. Now, he was calm, cooperative and didn't give the impression of being someone trying to avoid arrest, and that calmness worked in his favor. The officers who detained him were not immediately certain they had the right person that they were looking for, but still he was taken to the Killarney Town Hall lock up, where he was placed in a holding cell while the officers attempted to try and confirm
who he was and contact authorities in Winnipeg. Now, at that point it seemed like the situation was finally about to come to an end. However, we have to remember early patterns in Earl's behavior early when he was in institutions. Because while officers stepped away briefly to make contact to verify the arrest, the man they had taken into custody
began to work his way out. Using a piece of wire, he managed to manipulate the handcuffs and free himself, And when officers returned to the cell, the door was open and the man they had just arrested was gone. Earle had escaped custody.
Oh you're fricking kidding me. They were that damn close.
They were that close now, rightfully, so what followed was immediate panic. Word spread quickly through the Clarney area and surrounding areas too. If this was in fact the man they believed it was, and he was not just a suspect, he was someone who had already been linked to multiple murders at this point, and the idea that he was now just loose again, aware that authorities were close to catching him, well, it triggered a massive response. Residents were
warned and many gathered together in central locations for safety. Also, men organized into search groups and began moving through the countryside, making sure they were armed, checking buildings, barns, and open land looking for him. It was no longer just a police search. It had become a community effort to find someone who had already proven how quickly he could move and how easily he could disappear. Now that night, while search efforts were underwe, Earl found shelter in a nearby barn,
avoiding detection as people searched the area around him. By the next morning, he was on the move again, headed towards a train station with the intention of leaving the area, but this time the movement he relied on for so long worked against him. When he boarded the train, he believed he was headed back towards the United States, but instead the train took him in the opposite direction, towards Crystal City, where authorities had already been alerted and were waiting for him.
Oh okay, here we go.
When the train arrived, officers were prepared and as he stepped off, he was met by police. This time there was no confusion, there was no delay, and no opportunity to slip away. He was taken into custody, and this time he remained there. After more than a year of moving from city to city, entering homes, committing murders, and leaving before anyone could ever stop him, the man investigators
had been trying to identify was finally in cuffs. He was transported back to Winnipeg, and the focus of the investigation soon shifted to proving who he was and going through the evidence that had been building across all of these murders.
Well, and yeah, at this point too, it's two countries where he's committed crimes for sure.
Now, if you might remember, one of the pieces of evidence that they had on him was fingerprints. Right at the time they were taken, there was no identity to attach them to. But now with a suspecting custody, well, there was finally something they can compare it against, and when they compared it, they had a match.
Okay.
It was one of the first concrete links that officially tied him to the earlier killings, but other details began to align as well. Witnesses from different cities were brought in or consulted with, and their descriptions of that man that they had seen began to match more closely now with what there was as a person in front of them. The stocky bill, the large hands, the quiet demeanor, all
of it lined up with what had been reported. There was also physical evidence that supported those connections to injuries that had been noticed earliers. The scratches on the face, for example, it fit with accounts from victims who had resisted. But still at the center of it all was the question of his identity. Who was he now? Eventually, through fingerprint records and prior arrests, investigators were able to track
him down for his real name. This was Earl Leonard Nelson, and with that his history began to surface, with it his time in San Quentin, his multiple arrests, his institutionalization, and the earlier violent incident in nineteen twenty one. Well, he now had a name, a history and a record that could be followed. Cases from across the United States were now being reviewed in light of his arrests, because remember,
there was a lot of them. They had pieced together many, but there were still finding all these different ones that were possibly aligned with him. Now, some could be tied to him more direct than others, but the similarities were very consistent enough that authorities began linking him to many of these larger number of killings. Still, despite the evidence, Earl did not confess. He simply denied responsibility for his
crimes that he was being connected to. But by that point, the combination of physical evidence, witness accounts, and the pattern that was already established. While it was enough to move forward even without his cooperation, and they had enough to take the case to trial. Now, despite the number of killings that had been linked to him across the United States, he was going to first stand for his crimes on Canadian soil in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and only for the murder
of Emily Patterson. It was the case they had the strongest evidence on and they decided only to pursue it to try and secure their conviction. Okay, and Emily was the fourteen year old. Right, No, Emily was the one who had fought back but still died, one who had pulled hair.
Okay, well, that seems surprising to me that they feel like they had more evidence there when the other one they had the body like under the bed.
Well, she had fought back, she pulled hair, like there was a bit more. Whatever their reasoning was, they had more evidence on the Emily case and they figured it was stronger, so that was the one they were going to pursue.
Okay. Now.
The trial officially began on November one, nineteen twenty seven, inside a Manitoba courtroom, presided over by Judge Andrew dissert Now. The prosecution was led by R. B. Graham, while the defense was handled by James H. Did it Now. Over the course of the proceedings, the prosecution laid out the case in its entirety. It was built on a combination of physical evidence, witness testimony, and the sequence of events
leading up to the arrest. They presented details of Emily's death, the condition in which she had been found, and the evidence recovered from the scene itself, for example, the hair. They also introduced items that had been traced back to Earl from pawnshops, and this has played a very significant role too. People who had encountered him in the days leading up to the murder. They described his behavior and
his movements. The barbershop who noticed the injuries on his face, testified about the condition that he was in at the time, aligning with earlier accounts of a struggle. Others described seeing him in possession of items that had been taken from victims, all placing him within a clear timeline that led directly to the crime. When it came time for the defense, they didn't attempt to argue that Earle had been misidentified or that he had no connection to the events in question. Instead,
their strategy focused on his mental state. They argued that he was not legally responsible for his actions, pointing to his long history of instability and institutionalizations and documented health issues. Testimony also introduced suggestions that he was suffering from a condition that impaired his ability to understand or control his behavior, and among those who spoke on this was doctor Alvin Mathers, a psychiatrist who had evaluated him and offered insight into
his conditions. There were also attempts outside the courtroom to influence the outcome. Appeals for clemency were made supported by affidavids that described his mental instability and argued that execution, which is what the prosecution was after, was not appropriate.
For this case.
They brought up whether he was even someone who should have been punished in a traditional sense at all, or someone who should have remained confined in a medical setting instead. But inside the courtroom, the jury was focused on the evidence in front of them, and after hearing the testimony and reviewing the case, the deliberations were extremely brief. In less than an hour, the jury returned with their verdict.
They found Earl Nelson guilty of the murder of Emily Patterson, and Earle was sentenced to death.
Oh just like that, but honestly the what the defense was wanting. Like he would have just been in there and it would have just been the same old He would have escaped and he would have continued doing the freaking brutal shit that he's been doing.
Well, not necessarily, because with this sentence, this meant Earle would never be tried in the USA. He would have to serve his sentence in Canada first before heading back to the States to be tried, So if he didn't get the death sentence, he could have served a sentence and then been moved over to the States. Would have probably been locked up indefinitely, probably keeping a close eye
on him, knowing his history. Okay, interesting, but considering that he was getting the death penalty, he never got tried on American soil, which means, technically speaking, he is only guilty of one murder, which.
We very much so know and that he wasn't And I guess this is so far back in the day that when you git the death penalty, you actually get the death penalty.
Basically.
Yeah.
So early in November of nineteen twenty seven, Earl Nelson was transferred to death row in Winnipeg. The legal process had moved quickly, his arrest in June, the trial in November, and now a sentence that was left well with little uncertainty about what was to come. There were attempts to intervene in the weeks that followed, but none of them changed what had already been decided. During his time in custody, he continued to deny any sort of responsibility for the
crimes that he had been connected to. He did not offer a confession, he did not provide any broader explanation for the pattern of the killings that he had been tied to, why, or anything. What remained was the evidence that was presented in court and the verdict that followed. Efforts were also made to have his sentence reconsidered, but they were ultimately denied and the original sentence stood. On the morning of January thirteenth, nineteen twenty eight, acution was
carried out at the Vaughn Street Jail in Winnipeg. The time was set for seven thirty am. Earl Nelson was brought to the gallows, where he was prepared for hanging. In the moments before his execution, he spoke briefly. Accounts vary slightly on the wording, but the message is still the same. He expressed forgiveness towards those who he believed wronged him and maintained that he was innocent for his crimes. There was no admission of guilt even in the very end.
The execution proceeded as scheduled, and when the trap door in the gallows was released, the drop did not immediately result in a clean break of his neck, which was the intended outcome of a hanging, and that is what they were meant to do, break the neck, not strangle, yep. But instead Earl's death came much more slowly, as he was strangled by the full weight of his body, being tangled in the rope around his neck for several minutes.
Oh gosh, you almost I don't know if I'm alone to say this, but something was making that him suffer.
Well. My next sentence goes like this. This wasn't something that was unusual for the time. A hanging can go wrong easily, but it added a final twist of ironic fate to his end. He strangled his victims, and ultimately he endured the same demise.
Yeah, I don't know. I feel like something of higher power was like, nobody, your neck's not getting broken. Yeah, we're dragging this on for you.
I'm not someone who necessarily believes in fate or necessarily believes in karma either, but it's hard to think otherwise in that situation.
Yeah.
Now, with Earl Nelson's execution, the immediate threat he posed was finally gone, but the full scope of what had happened didn't resolve quite as cleanly. He had been convicted of only a single murder. The killing of Emily Patterson in Winnipeg that was the charge of court could prove the one that fell within its jurisdiction and the one
that ultimately led to his execution. But by the time the trial was concluded, investigators on both sides of the border were already looking far beyond just that one case. Across the United States and Canada, authorities began reviewing unsolved
murders that matched the very same pattern. Some of those cases could be tied to him more directly through evidence, timing, or witness accounts, but others remained a lot less certain, connected through pattern and circumstance alone rather than definitive proof. As a result, the number of victims attributed to Earl Nelson the Gorilla Killer has always carried some degree of
uncertainty and a lot of debate. The most commonly cited figure along his name is at least twenty two victims, though some estimates they suggest the number may be much higher than that.
I was honestly expecting the number to be higher than that. That is still a huge number, yes, but yeah, I bet you anything.
Is it likely is?
Yes? Just because of how quickly was murdering people like it would sometimes be one each day, like there wasn't very much time in between some of these frickin' murders.
You're right, it was quick, fast, and constant. Now, twenty two is not a number to scoff out. In fact, it's a profound body count in all honesty. But what makes this case stand out isn't just that number alone,
but how it unfolded. Earle moved across multiple states and into Canada at a time when there was no effective system for tracking a single offender across jurisdictions, and as you mentioned, it was fast, day after day, and each police department worked its own case, often without knowing what had happened elsewhere until much later. They're focusing on their day, their victim, their murder, their case, not seeing the broader picture,
because how could they. The idea that one person could be responsible for a series of murders spreading across such a wide area was not something investigate were even equipped to recognize immediately, and by the time those connections were made, the events had already taken place. The case would later be looked at as one of the earliest examples of what would come to be understood as a serial killing pattern, one individual operating over time, targeting similar victims and repeating
the same method across different locations. But in the nineteen twenties that framework didn't exist in the way it does now. Investigators were learning it as they went, basically building an understanding of the pattern only after it was already developed. Because of that severe disconnect, we still do not know the full story behind what had happened. Even after his arrest, so many questions still remained. He never confessed to the
crimes that he was accused of. There was no final statement that explained his actions, no account that filled in the gaps between cities or clarified how he chose victims or why he did it in the first place. What was left instead was the record where investigators tried to catch up. So in the end, the case didn't close with the complete explanation. It closed with a name, a timeline,
and series of connections that stretched across an entire continent. Though, and for those who had been directly affected, the families the victims, and the communities where the killings took place, the impact was huge for investigators too. It became a reference point and a textbook example of an not the beginning of this kind of violence, but one of the first times it had been seen so clearly and across enough distance in time to recognize for what it really was.
A serial killer. And that's the story of Earl Nelson, the Gorilla Killer.
Such a savage mofo. Yeah, it was very serial killers are just very disturbing, I know, And one of the things that disturbed me so much about this.
I almost believe Earl that he truly thought he was innocent. I don't know if he knew what he was really doing.
Are you serious?
I kind of.
Feel I think he was just very mentally unstable.
I do think so, oh what though?
You I don't to just not remember killing twenty two people though, and thinking you're an innocent man.
Yeah, it's a massive claim, trust me, I get it. I don't know if I believe my own opinion on this one, but I just have this gut feeling in me that something was going on in his head that he didn't even know was going on, and whether he actually blacked out like many people claim they did or not, or there was something different going on. I truly believe that Earle was not the gorilla killer. I believe that something else in Earl was the Gorilla killer, if that makes any sense.
I mean, Earl had a terrible life. His whole life was a shit.
Yes, I'm not saying.
Like he made a lot of other people's life very shitty. But if this was nowadays, yeah, I don't think he probably wouldn't have been. What's like, he wouldn't have been able or fit for trial is probably what the outcome would have been.
Probably wouldn't have been. I don't think he would have been. And I want to clarify, I'm not saying that Earl was a good guy. I just think there is a separation between the killer in him and Earl.
I like how you had your hands up like, don't come at me.
Well, yeah, Earl is a piece of shit. Yea, but he is a piece of shit. But I do think that he was not fully aware of his actions, and I do not think he was fit to stand trial.
It's a little bit frustrating to I mean, just I'm struggling because you don't really get to know his motivation or anything. Was it just that like was I guess was he meant seriously mentally ill? Was it sexually motivated? Was he did, he just like actually killing people, you know, like you don't really know.
No, we don't. And that's another disturbing part of this story is we do not know those answers, the in betweens.
Yeah, because yeah, that's one thing that's very interesting about serial killers is you know, figuring out their motivation and why they're doing this and stuff. But sometimes it's such a fucked up reason that it's just they like killing people, which is yeah, weird.
Which you can't understand. There's been stories before where you know, I like to play the devil's advocate here, right, and there's stories where I can't even do that because it's just like, what the fuck was that? Like I can't defend that, Not that I want to defend it, but you know what I mean.
The idea, well, I read something today. If you can literally not understand or comprehend why someone is doing something, it's because you would yourself never be able to do that.
That's a good way. I love that.
So I think that's kind of like the reasoning.
Wow, And maybe that's why I sympathize with Earle, because the only way I could ever commit that something like that is if there was a detachment and it was not me. Yeah, and maybe that's why I'm kind of like seeing that because I have a feeling there's that in him, and that could be the only way I'd ever do it myself. Not that I would do it, but you.
Know what I mean, right, Wow, But like, but it is hard to understand too that a switch just flips, you know, and then I don't know, but he does put himself in the scenario too, to be alone with a female in these boarding houses and stuff.
Oh, one hundred percent. So that's why I think he's still a piece of shit. He's still putting himself there. He's still following this pattern. But is he like as soon as their backs like something switches in him and then he just kills and then he walks out and comes to and doesn't know what happened, and off to the next place.
Yes, maybe, I mean both scenarios are terrifying.
Yeah, isn't it so dark as fuck no matter how you look at it.
Yeah, But well, on that note, have a great day.
Yeah, thank you for being here. Hopefully enjoyed the story of the Gorilla Killer. As I mentioned last episode, We're gonna go and go down the rabbit Hole and a few more serial killers here for the next little while. Hopefully you're ready for that, because there's going to be some dark stories coming, but for now, thank you for being here. Don't forget to check out the description of this podcast. We have our links, all that sort of stuff. We have a new website that's coming up pretty soon,
so watch out for that. Shoot us a message, let us know your opinion, and of course, as always, until next time, stay wicked thing. Oh oh,