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The Gorilla Killer - Earle Nelson - Part 1 · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Beginning in nineteen twenty six, a string of murders targeting
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: women renting out rooms in their homes began appearing across
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the United States and even into Canada. Each victim had
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: allowed a man into their home, and each was killed
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: in nearly identical circumstances. At the time, there was no
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: system in place to track crimes across jurisdictions, and the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: cases remained disconnected. It wasn't until much later that investigators
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: began to understand that they were dealing with a single
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: individual moving from city to city. Eventually, descriptions of this
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: individual began to come out. He was hunched over, physically strong,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: with oversized hands. Now this description would soon lead to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: an ominous nickname that would go down in serial killer history.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: This is the story of the man known as the
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Gorilla Killer.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast. Warning the following.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Material audience listener discretion. I'm going to be honest today,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent honest, because I think it's important for
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: people to be honest. I'm in a funk. I am
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: in a funk. I feel like depressed. The last couple
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: of days. Just I think weather winter is getting to me.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: It's still it's an all depression. It is snowing right
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: now here I want so.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Bad, but in reality it's only April seven, So it's like,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I don't feel like it's super abnormal that it's snowing
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: For our area. Maybe, but we have a lot more
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: cold and snow than typical, and I'm just I'm so
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: done with it.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Well, I think what it really is is that Mother
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Nature has been toying with us, and we've had a
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: lot of springs and then it's gone fall springs.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think mother Nature's kind of a bitch. I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: think she's kind of a bit.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: At the moment. I guess she's being that way to
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Northern BC people.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Definitely, she can fuck off. Oh my goodness, I'm sorry.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I'm just being honest.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: I know. Well, right before we hit record, its like, okay, like,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: what can we do today to make you feel a
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: little better? What would be something that excites you? Maybe
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: we should figure that out. Yeah, so we might go
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: to a virtual golf simulator.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Go simulate summer. That's what we're gonna do.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because we do have a place open that's outside,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: But do you want to be doing that when it's snowing?
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: So maybe going indoors where you're going to have it
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: some nachos or something might be a little better.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, for sure. But I just wanted to
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: say that and be honest with you, just to let
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: you know that everyone goes through it, Everyone has their ups,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: their downs, keep fighting. I'm going to keep fighting too.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get to happiness here soon. Not that
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not happy.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: I'm just in a funk, you know, Yeah, I mean,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: what would it be if we were just always happy?
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: I feel like sometimes you have to be in those
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: funks because it makes the happy moments even better.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: There you go. That's a good way of putting it.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I like that like that a lot. I'm not going
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: to do any fancy transition today because I'm too much
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: in a funk. I'm just going to go straight into
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: thanking our amazing patron members who signed up this week.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: We have a big list. We have Courtney A net Bro,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Gabriel Herbine, Raven Locke, Meta organ Works, Bonnie mathany A,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Neetra Don and jam A Lama ding dong Hey, Red
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Gussie Susan McLean, Killie Graves, Christy Massey, Leanne Jeensen, and
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Joe h It's good list names. It good list of
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: some amazing people.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow, I can't actually believe that we're we still
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: get that many on some weekly basises.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I know the support is crazy. I think basis is right.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so that's awesome.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I like that. Thank you, yes, thank you so much.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: And there was a little bit of content that I
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: promise last episode it is going to be coming out
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: over there today and yeah, of course there's there's lots
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: over there. I'm just going to leave it at that.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: How's that.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that last story was pretty wild, but this one
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: sounds I don't know, as a female, I feel like
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: it sounds scary.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I suppose, Oh it's scary. It's a serial killer. And yeah,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: he's targeting women in a very certain manner. It's it's
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: not pretty Okay. Are you ready for it? Though?
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Okay. Before before we get into the episode, I got
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: to tell you this is a part one of a
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: two parter story. We forgot to say that, So I
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: had to go back and record this and I'm plunking
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: it in for you. Guys, to give you a heads up,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: this is part one of the Gorilla Killer. So with
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: that being said, let's get into it. Well, in the
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: mid nineteen twenties, there wasn't exactly a word for what
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: was happening. Murders were investigated, you know, one at a time,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: and if a body was found in one city, then
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: it was assumed it had nothing to do with the
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: case that was happening and unfolding in another city. Police
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: simply worked within their own jurisdictions, you know, building those
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: cases based on what was directly in front of them.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: If something similar happened somewhere else, it was well, it
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: was coincidence, that was it. Now. On top of that,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: travel was certainly common. People moved between cities without much documentation.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Someone could arrive in one town, rent a room, stay
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: a few days, and leave without much of a trail
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: behind them. There was no centralized system that was tracking
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: anyone's movement, no shared databases connecting any sort of investigations,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: and no reason to assume that a crime being committed
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: in California might be connected to one, say in Oregon
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: or beyond. And for people living through that exact scenario,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: everything felt local a woman goes missing, a landlady found
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: dead in her home. A suspect is briefly there but
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: then disappears. Each event was treated as its own tragedy,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: contained within the boundaries of that single city. There was
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: no consideration of a broader pattern, or no larger framework
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to place it in, just a series of incidents that
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: didn't quite make sense. Now. It wasn't that signs weren't there.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: It was just no one had seen them to come
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: together like this before. But before we get too deep
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: into it, I should start at the very beginning. Earl
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Leonard Ferrell was born on May twelfth, eighteen ninety seven,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: in San Francisco, California. He would later become known by
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: his mother's surname Nelson, but at birth he was Earl
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Leonard Ferrell. He was the son of Francis Nelson and
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: James Carlos Ferrell. His life began in a home that
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: was already very unstable to start with. Both of his
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: parents were infected with syphilis, and both would be dead
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: before he was old enough to remember them. His mother
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: died when he was still an infant, and his father
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: followed not long after, leaving him orphaned. Before he turned
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: only two years old.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Oh man, that is harsh.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and at that time, syphilis was a very dangerous disease.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: WHOA Okay, Now, we don't know a lot about his parents,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: but what we do know is that their relationship appears
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: to have been troubled even before Earle was conceived. One
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: of the more detailed sources described James as a heavy
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: drinker who spent money on alcohol and sex workers, and
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: says Francis was left in increasingly desperate circumstances while pregnant
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: and then a course caring for the baby alone. So
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: by the time Earle was born, Francis was already seriously ill,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: and the discovery that she had advanced syphilis at the
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: time during her labor only confirmed how bleak the situation was,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: so much so that there was an immediate concern that
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: the infection could be passed along to Earl himself. Though
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: the accounts agreed that he survived infancy without any obvious
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: signs of congenital infections. What mattered more in the short
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: term was that his mother was no longer in a
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: condition to raise him, at least certainly not for long,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: because she passed away. Now, after both parents did die,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Earle was taken in by his mother's family in San Francisco.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: There he was raised mostly by his maternal grandmother, Jenny Nelson,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: and other family members there were as well, Like you know,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: in the household, there was his grandfather Lars Nelson as well,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: plus their younger children, Willis and Lillian. Religion also seem
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: to have been a very large part of that environment
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: where he was brought up, though this is one of
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the places where sources start to differ from one another.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Several accounts describe the household as very deeply Pentecostal and
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: very strict, and they say that Earl was raised around
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: strong religious ideas from a very young age. Now. At
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the same time, some also mention the fact that his
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: childhood religious upbringing could have been overstated in many of
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: the retellings of this case. So the safest way to
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: tell this is religion was present in his home, but
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the extent is mostly unknown now. Even as a young child,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: sources described Earl as very withdrawn. He was moody and
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: strange in ways that stood out to a lot of
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: the people around him. Some accounts say that he talked
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: to people no one else could see that He quoted
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: scripture very loudly, and often. He would leave for school
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: clean and ready for the day, but he would return
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: home wearing different clothes, ones that were dirty, ratty, and torn.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: He was often described as isolated and for some reason
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: seemingly resistant to normal social interaction, and many adults even
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: noticed something was off with him. He attended school in
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: San Francisco, but that didn't last long. At just seven
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: years old, he was expelled. The exact reasons very depending
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: on the account, but they all point to the same direction.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: His behavior was disruptive and it was concerning enough for
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the school to decide that he could not remain there.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: At seven years old.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: At seven years old.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: I feel like that is something you don't hear very often.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, of course he did go back to other
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: schools and stuff, but that's definitely a big old red flesh.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, at that age that young.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Now at home, similar patterns were playing out. He had
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: difficulty interacting with other children and seemed to withdraw into himself. Reportedly,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: he would speak very loud to people, but as I mentioned,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: people were not there. He would also fixate on ideas
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: and repeat them obsessively. There were also physical traits that
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: people noticed too. Now, Earle was not particularly tall by
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: any sense, but he developed unusually large hands and feet
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: for his size. Combined with his now stocky build that
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: was growing, it gave him a physical appearance that didn't
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: match his age. And at the time it was just
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: another detail, but later on in life it would become
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: part of how his witnesses would identify him.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: There was another detail that made him stand out and
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: not be this similar as everyone else.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Exactly. He couldn't blend in quite as easy. Now. Food
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: was another area where he stood out to One account
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: described him refusing normal meals and instead mixing some kind
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: of scraps together and eating far more than expected for
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: a child his age. I even read one report, though
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: this one didn't seem I couldn't back up this account,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: but it's interesting to note at least this idea. The
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: report stated how he would smother his food in olive
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: oil and consume it without utensils.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's interesting. I actually feel like that would not
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: be good at all.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think so either. Now, again, that's a
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: report I could not confirm, but it at least helps
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: betray the idea.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: But maybe it was just I don't know, playing devil's
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: advocate here, that his body needed something right, and so
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: he gravitated to olive oil. And that's like what fueled him,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: or potentially, who knows, whatever was in there his body craved.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: It's possible. It's a good way of looking at it. Actually,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: your body does tend to crave things that well, it
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: needs write certain vitamins and foods and minerals and stuff.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: So it makes sense now whether these were isolated behaviors
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: or part of a very much so larger pattern, it's
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: hard to say, but they added to that growing sense
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: that something about Earl was different and not in the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: way that people understood. Now, at the age of around
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: ten or eleven, something happened that would be remembered by
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: nearly every single account of Earl Nelson's life. A serious
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: accident had left him unconscious for days and marked a
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: very clear shift on how he was described afterwards. Now, reportedly,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Earl was riding his bike through San Francisco when he
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: was showing off in the streets to some other kids,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: and during this he ended up having an accident where
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: he collided with a car. Now, the impact was severe,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: as he struck his head on the pavement hard enough
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: to cause a significant skull injury. Reportedly, it left a
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: visible wound near his temple, and he was taken into
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: the hospital very quickly, and for a time it wasn't
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: clear if he was even going to survive there. He
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: remained unconscious in the hospital for around six days, and
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: for a child, that kind of head trauma is extremely serious,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and the expectation from doctors at the time was if
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: he even did live, he might not fully recover. But
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: against that though, Earle did regain consciousness and he recovered
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: enough to return to daily life, but the people around
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: him would later say that something had changed in him.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: He was weird before, but he got a little more
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: odd now. Afterwards, he began to experience a lot of
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: ongoing issues. He complained of frequent headaches and memory problems.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: There were reports of what were described as spells, moments
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: where he seemed disconnected or not fully aware of what
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: was happening around him. His behavior also became a lot
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: more erratic, where he had already been very withdrawn and
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: difficult before, while those traits now appeared much more pronounced.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: He was described even more as being moody and unpredictable
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: and very much so more difficult to engage with. The
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: combination of his earlier behaviors and the changes following the
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: accident had shaped the way people saw him. He wasn't
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: just a quiet or troubled kid anymore. He was someone
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: who made people feel uneasy. Now. Unfortunately, as Earl moved
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: into his teenage years, the instability had been building through
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: his childhood and it didn't level out. It expanded into
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: new areas of his life too. By his early teens,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: he had started spending a lot more time out of
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: the structure of his family home, particularly in areas of
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: San Francisco that exposed him to things most kids his
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: age wouldn't have been. Around. The Barbary Coast, known at
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the time for its bars, brothels and nightlife, became one
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: of the places that he frequented. It was there that
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: he began drinking alcohol regularly and engaging in early sexual experiences.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: And he's what just early early teens.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my goodness, gracious.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, so we're talking thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: That's pretty scary to be around that stuff at that age,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: because obviously it's not going to do you well at all?
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Certainly not. And of course as well, you have to
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: consider the fact that, well, this is a child and
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: he's engaging with these behaviors with adults. Okay, so that
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: alone can do a lot for someone's psychological development.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Now It's important to note as well that this wasn't
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: occasional behavior. He was often drinking to excess, visiting these brothels,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: and spending time and environments that were very chaotic and
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: unregulated on a very frequent basis. And at some point
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: during these years he also contracted a venereal disease, which
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: would stay with him and become another part of his
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: medical and personal history. But I digress.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: While all this was going on, Earle continued to struggle
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: with anything resembling any sort of stability in his life.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: He didn't stay in school, he didn't build consistent relationships,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: and he didn't move towards any kind of structured path
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: the way most people around him would have expected, or
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: at least hoped. Instead, he drifted between odd jobs and
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: periods of inactivity, never holding on to anything for very long. Now,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: as he continued growing as a young man does physically,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: he was developing in a different direction. He became strong,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: noticeably so. Multiple accounts described him as having unusually powerful
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: an unusually powerful upper body. He could perform physical feats
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: that people remembered, like walking on his hands for extended
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: distances or lifting up objects with his teeth alone. Combined
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: this with his large hands his stocky frame, it gave
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: him a very intimidating and distinctive presence, making him very
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: memorable to those he encountered. Now, as he moved further
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: into his late teens, the gap between him and a
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: normal life widened. Earle wasn't setting into work, family, or
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: even a community. He was drifting between places and increasingly
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: between legal boundaries as well. On July twenty fifth, nineteen fifteen,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: at just eighteen years old, Earl was arrested for robbery. Now,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the charge came out of Plymouth County, California, and it
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: marked his very first serious entry into the criminal justice system. See.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Up to that point, there had been signs that he
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: was struggling sure socially, mentally, and even behaviorally, but this
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: was different. This was a clear, documented crime, and in fact,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: it resulted in a prison sentence. He was sent to
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: San Quentin state prison and given a two year sentence
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: for his crime. Now, for someone his age, it was
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: a very significant moment. Prison was not just a punishment.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: It was supposed to be a turning point, a place
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: of reform, where someone might come out with the clear
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: direction or at least a stronger sense of consequences. But
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: in Earle's case, though, that didn't happen. He was paroled
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: and released on September sixth, nineteen sixteen, after serving thirteen
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: months and twelve days. But whatever the expectation that was
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: there that he would, you know, stabilize after prison, right,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: that didn't hold. Instead, the pattern of drifting and instability
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: continued almost immediately. In March of nineteen seventeen, less than
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a year after his release, he was arrested once again,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: this time under the alias Clark for petty larceny. Now
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: he was sentenced to another six months in jail. The
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: use of an alias is a small detail, but it
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: was one that showed up repeatedly after that later on
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: in his life. Even at this stage, he was already
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: moving between identities and not staying tied to one name
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: or place for very long. Now, two years later, in
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: March of nineteen nineteen, he was arrested once again, this
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: time in Los Angeles for burglary, and like before, he
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: was using a different name, which was Feral. He was
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: held in the Los Angeles County Jail, but this time
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: something different happened. After serving about five months, Earl actually
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: escaped prison, and it introduced a new pattern, not just
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: committing crimes but actively avoiding confinement. Now around this same time,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: he also attempted to enter the military, not once, but
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: multiple times. He enlisted in the Army and then later
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: in the Navy, but each attempt followed the same sort
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: of pattern. He would join, remain there for a short time,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and then disappear. In some cases he deserted it outright,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: in others he was discharged after showing signs of instability.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Though by the end of this period, Earl Nelson had
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: already served time in prison, been arrested for multiple times
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: under different names, and escaped custody, while also failing to
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: remain in any sort of structured environment, even like the military.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: By nineteen eighteen and into nineteen nineteen, the pattern of
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: his behavior and his life had become very clear. Short
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: periods of structure followed by instability followed by disappearance. But
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: around this time something else changed, Something changed in how
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: authorities began to view him. He was no longer just
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: a repeat offender. He was now being seen as someone
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: who was mentally unstable as well. After his repeated issues
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: with the military and his erratic behavior, he came into
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: contact with medical professionals who began evaluating him very closely. Now,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: a naval psychiatrist eventually described him as being in what
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: they called a continual psychotic state, a term used at
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the time to describe someone who was fundamentally unstable in
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: a way that wasn't expected to improve. Because of this,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: he was soon committed to a mental institution, and this
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: marked the beginning of another cycle that would repeat itself
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: over it over for the next several years. It would
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: go something like confinement, escape, return, and then release, and
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: so Earle repeatedly escaped care Some accounts suggested he got
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: out multiple times in relatively short periods, and rather than
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: being consistently brought back or more tightly controlled, there were
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: moments where the staff simply failed to enforce strict containment,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and this created a situation where he was moving in
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: and out of custody without any sort of long term
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: solution being put into place. Now. In between these periods
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: of confinement, he attempted to live something resembling a normal life,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: at least for him anyways. At one point he did
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: find some work and he was employed as a janitor
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: in a hospital, and during that time, in about nineteen nineteen,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: he met and married a woman named Mary Martin, and
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the age difference between them was very significant. He wasn't
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the older one, though she was decades older than he
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: was most accounts, she was close to forty years his senior,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: and the relationship itself was unstable from the very beginning, like.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: There was a forty year age difference, or she.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Was forty, there was a forty year age difference. She
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: was forty years older than him by most accounts. Oh, whoa, okay, yeah,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: that's a lot. That's a big age gap.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Because I know, especially back then, I don't think the
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: age gaps didn't seem as big of a deal, right, Yeah,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: but generally did seem like the man was older. But
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: forty that's significant.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: That is very significant. Yeah, and especially for this time,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: like you said, the age gaps weren't very much a thing,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: and it was typically the men who were older, which
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: in hindsight is just predatory behavior. But I digress. But yeah,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: she's forty years older than him.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, And I just have to also say, this is
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: so interesting. We haven't done a serial killer case really
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: for a while, and it's so interesting just how you
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: it's just you can just it's just a brewer really right,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Like it's you go through all that their upbringing and stuff,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: and it's just like okay, wow, like that is fucked up.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Some of the shit they go through.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you just know, bad shit it's about to happen.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, no kidding. And trust me when I say, I
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: think I'm going to start going on a train of
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: serial killers here for a while at least, you know,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: looking for more of them to do in the show,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: like sort of thing more recently because it's been so
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: longs to be covered these cases. And the interesting thing
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: is we start to dissect as what you're kind of
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: alluding to, their background, their upbringing, and you get to
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: look at how a serial killer came to be. Now
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: there's no specific recipe to say, well that's the moment
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: that became a serial killer. There's you know, there's product
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: of environment, and there's product of people even say, you
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: know what, being born a killer, a serial killer, a monster.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: But there are patterns, which is interesting. But what I
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: find most interesting about this case is almost everything about
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: is upbringing was was different. What do you mean there's
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: no specific thing where you can say, oh, well, that's
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: like Jeffrey Dahmer, or that's like this killer or that killer,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: or this person or that person. He is a very
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: unique individual.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for sure. But it definitely is portraying like
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: a very unstable environment, which I feel often is kind
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: of the key.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: For sure. Yeah, the unstable environment is a very big factor.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: You're right. But the unstable environment he is in, it's
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: a product of almost his own finding, not like he
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: was having people bring him into it. It wasn't like
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: he had suffered at severe abuse from his parents and
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: then moved on to say, well okay, I get abused,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: so I'm going to abuse other people or those sort
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: of patterns. It's just well, it's unstable. That's the only
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: factor that seems to be transferable.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: And it does seem like they're I mean, I guess
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: going into the hospital and stuff. It seems like maybe
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: they're people out there trying to help. But also I
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: think they're realizing I guess back then they're incapable of
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: kind of helping him.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's that they're realizing they're uncapable.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I have a feeling it's also not too concerned about it.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, like he is just what he is, but he's
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: not going to do anything other than kind of like
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: these petty little crimes or something.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and like when you look at the history of
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: how people treated quote unquote mentally unstable patients, well, what
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: did they do? Locked them up, lobotomized them, They didn't
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: really do much with them. Yeah, they're just oh, they're
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to use the R word, but that's
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: kind of how they treated them. They're they're that right,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: And they just looked at them as disposable and whatever.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: That was their attitude. Yeah, So it wasn't a matter
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: of can we fix them. I mean, there was the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: can we fix them in the term of like you're
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: a science project, But they didn't look at them as people,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: as humans.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: That's true. Yeah, when you see the facilities that they
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: had back then, it really wasn't very great.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: No, So honestly, I'm not too surprised he would start
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: trying to escape those situations. I can't blame them for
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: that aspect. But back to the topic of you know,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: the patterns, there is that pattern of the broad, you know,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: behavior of an unstable upbringing, but there's no specific point
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: to say that's what caused any of it, or any
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: sort of unstability. Right. But now back to this marriage
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: with this woman that was forty years his senior. This
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: marriage wasn't exactly any sort of sunshine and rainbows. I
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: want to make that clear. Accounts describe his behavior during
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: this marriage as very erratic and very difficult. I mean,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: he was kind of like that anyways. But he reportedly
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: refused to bathe, He had sudden mood swings, and struggled
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: to function in any sort of consistent normal way. Earle
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: also wanted to have sex on a nightly basis, and
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: his wife Mary would sometimes well not be in the mood,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: which is very reasonable.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Especially if your partner isn't bath Yeah her bathe, Yeah,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: I get that.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Now. She reportedly was a very religious woman, so what
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: happened when she did refuse deeply disturbed her, and I'm
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: sure it would disturb many people who weren't even religious,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: because Earle would just then openly begin to masturbate and
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: take care of himself next to her in bed. If
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: she refused, okay, just quite literally take matters into his
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: own hand.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, oh gosh. I was like yep, but then
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: I realized.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Well. Needless to say, the relationship didn't last long. Mary
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: eventually left him, and the marriage ended as abruptly as
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: it began. Earle moved on and his life continued as
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: it always had. He continued to suffer from severe headaches,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: and there were even reports of fainting episodes still. In
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: one instance, he even fell from the ladder at work
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: during one of these episodes and was hospitalized again for
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: another head injury. Even in that setting, though he didn't
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: remain under supervision for very long, as he just escaped
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: once again, leaving the hospital with his head still bandaged up.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: They were also increasing reports of hallucinations and paranoia with Earle.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: He had apparently been hearing voices more and more and
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: even believing that people were trying to harm him. Now,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: whether these symptoms were consistent or episodic, it's very difficult
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: to say, since Earle often refused to stay for any
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: sort of medical assistance, but they were serious enough that
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: medical professionals certainly took notice when they did have them
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: in their care. Now, by nineteen twenty one, Earl Nelson
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: had already spent years drifting through jobs that didn't last,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and time in prison and time in institutions, and repeated
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: attempts to fit into some kind of structure that never held.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: But up to this point, his criminal record had been
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: mostly centered around theft and disorder, but that all changed
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: in May of that year. On May nineteenth, nineteen twenty one,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Earl approached a home in San Francisco, and he used
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: a simple excuse to get inside. He told the occupants
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: he was a plumber and that was enough for him
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: to gain entry. He was let in without much suspicion.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Once inside, he came into contact with Mary Summers, a
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: twelve year old girl. Now what happened next escalated very quickly.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: He attempted to assault her, but almost immediately the situation
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: broke down. Mary screamed as he approached her, loudly enough
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: to alert the others in the house. Her brother, who
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: heard the noise, rushed in and interrupted the act before
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: it could go any further. Earle then fled the scene,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: but it didn't give him much of a head start,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: as police were soon notified and it didn't take long
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: for them to catch up to him and arrest him. Now,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: instead of sending him back to prison, he was evaluated
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: and declared insane, and based on that assessment, he was
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: committed to NAPA State Mental Hospital. While they where Earle
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: didn't respond to treatment in any sort of meaningful way.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: He was described as unpredictable, difficult to manage, and at
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: times openly threatening towards staff. Some medical professionals believed he
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: should remain institutionalized indefinitely, but despite that, the institution was
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: never able to fully contain him. Just like before he escaped,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: he would slip out and return to the outside world
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: before then being brought back in, and each time this occurred,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: the system was supposed to hold him, but it showed
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: that same sort of weakness. It wasn't built to keep
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: someone like Earl there permanently. Within these periods of confinement,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: he was able to move through everyday life in ways
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: that didn't immediately draw attention. He worked some odd jobs,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: stayed in different places, and blended in when he needed
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: to the line between being institutionalized and being free became
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: that inconsistent and almost fluid normal moments in his life.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: That's what normal, not the jobs, not being in a
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: place of care, but that in between. There were stretches
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: where he was under supervision, followed by stretches where he wasn't,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: with no clear system holding anything together, and eventually, on
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: March tenth, nineteen twenty five, Earl Nelson was officially discharged
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: from NAPA State Hospital. The circumstances around that release aren't
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: entirely clear, but what stands out is that it wasn't
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: a result of stable recovery. This was someone who had
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: already shown violent behavior, who'd been labeled mentally unstable, and
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: who had repeatedly escaped from care. Yet by March of
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty five, he was no longer confined.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Oh no, okay, Yeah, this isn't good because especially his
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: last crime there affects a child. Yeah, so this needs
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: to be taken very seriously.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't just the problem now. From there, Like
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: before he began to drift, he moved between cities, took
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: on some short work when he could, and use different
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: names depending on whatever wherever he was for a time
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: there was no confirmed incidents that tied him to any
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: sort of serious violence, and that stretch, however brief it
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: may have been, is part of what makes this period
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: difficult to read clearly. See it creates a gap, one
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: where he was moving from place to place, but not
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: yet connected to anything that would draw attention. There are
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: accounts that suggest he may have begun killing in this gap,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: which is earlier than what is officially documented. In particular,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: there are three murders in Philadelphia in late nineteen twenty five,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: the murder of Ola McCoy, May Murray, and Lilian Wiener,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: murders that share similarities with what would later come. Each
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: victim was attacked in their own home, and each case
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: there were elements that would eventually become familiar in other investigations. However,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: these cases are they've never been definitively proven to be his.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: The connection comes from a combination of witness descriptions, patterns
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: in the crime, and the fact that items belonging to
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: the victims were later linked to a man matching his description.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Even so, they remained attributed rather than confirmed. But I digress.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: So this period sits in a kind of uncertainty this
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: gap in time. On one hand, there is a stretch
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: of time where nothing is officially tied to him, but
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: on the other there are early signs that something may
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: have already been happening, just without evidence needed to fully
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: connect it. What is clear is that by this time
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty six, when it began, Earle was once
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: again fully on his own. He was moving freely, using
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: different identities and interacting with people who had no reason
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: to question him. Then on February twentieth, nineteen twenty six,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: San Francisco, that would all change. Clara Newman was a
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: woman in her early sixties and she had operated a
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: room out of her house at two zero three seven
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Pierce Street. Like many landladies at the time, she rented
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: out space in her home to supplement her income. A
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: simple sign advertising a vacancy was all it took to
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: bring people to her door. He was a normal arrangement
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and it didn't attract much attention. But on that afternoon,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: at around one thirty PM, a man arrived asking about
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: a room, and Clara let him in. Her nephew, Merton,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: was in the house at the time. He saw the
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: man when he entered and was able to observe him briefly.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: The man appeared to be around thirty years old, about
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: five foot seven, wearing a mix of clothing that didn't
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: quite match, an army style shirt with cimiliant pants. He
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: had a darker complexion, but nothing about him stood out
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: as immediately alarming. He was just another man responding to
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: the sign in the window. Clara took him upstairs to
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: show him the available room, but he wasn't up there
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: very long. A short time later, the man came back
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: down on his own. He passed Merton and he said
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: something simple, almost very casual, as he walked past. He
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: told him to let Clara know that he would be
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: back at about an hour to rent the room, and
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: then he left the house. Nothing about this exchange was
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: out of the ordinary. It was a regular kind of interaction,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: in fact, that could have happened dozens of times without
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: anyone ever remembering it, especially for someone showing the room
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: frequently to potential renters. Yeah, but the hour passed and
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Clara didn't come back downstairs, and the man didn't come
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: back either, And at some point Merton went upstairs to
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: check on Clara, and there upstairs he found her dead.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, Okay, I wasn't expecting that he had
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: already done it.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Clara Newman had been strangled to death. A cord had
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: been wrapped tightly around her neck, and there were clear
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: signs that she had struggled. The room showed evidence of
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: what had happened, but there was no sign that there
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: was anyone there anymore. When officers arrived, they had a
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: description of the man who was there earlier, but not
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: much else. There were no fingerprints that tied a known
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: suspect to anything, no obvious trail to follow. The man
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: who had entered the house had just left just as
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: calmly as he arrived, and aside from Merton's brief observations
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: of him, there wasn't anything else to go on.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: That's absolutely brutal.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, at that point the case was treated as
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: a single murder, tragic but isolated. Now. Less than two
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: weeks after Clara Newman was found dead, another case appeared,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: this time outside San Francisco. On March second, nineteen twenty six,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: in San Jose, California, Laura Beale, a sixty five year
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: old woman who operated a Deer Park apartments building, was
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: found dead inside one of her vacant units. Like Clara,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: she had been renting out rooms. Like Clara, she had
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: let someone into the space without much of a second thought.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Her husband would ultimately be the one who had found
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: her dead. She was strangled with the silk belt from
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: her own dress pulled tightly around her neck. There were
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: clear signs that she had struggled, and further examination showed
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: that she had been sexually assaulted as well. Now the
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: case was investigated on its own. At that time, there
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: was no immediate connection that made the murder of Clara
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: in San Francisco tying to this one. It was a
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: different city, it was different jurisdiction, had no shared system
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: to compare cases in real time. To investigators in San Jose,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: this was just another violent crime that needed to be
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: solved on its own.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Well, they probably didn't even know about the other one.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: No, they didn't. Then a few months later, it happened again.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: In June of nineteen twenty six, back in San Francisco,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Lilyan Saint Mary, a sixty three year old woman who
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: also rented rooms in her home, was found dead under
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: similar circumstances. She had shown a man a vacant room.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: There was a struggle, and like the others, she had
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: been strangled to death. Now by this point, the pattern
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: was becoming a little hard to ignore. Three women, all
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: operating boarding houses or renting rooms, all attacked in their
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: own properties, all strangled after letting someone in. It wasn't
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: enough yet to identify a suspect, but it was enough
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: to raise a bit of a question. Investigators, for the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: first time began to look at these cases side by side.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: The way the attacker gained access, the type of victims
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: he chose, and the method he used. They all lined
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: up in a way that didn't seem to feel random.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: But they weren't the only ones who began to connect
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the dots. The newspapers started to take notice to but
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: without a name or a face to attach to the crimes,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: they began to describe the person responsible in broader terms,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: based on witness descriptions of a stocky build, darker complexion,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: unusually large hands. Well, the press gave him sensationalized names
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: on their own, things like the dark Strangler and the
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: gorilla killer.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: The gorilla killer oh u okay, I don't know that
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: one kind of freaks me out.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: A little. The names spread quickly, and with them came
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: a growing sense of unease. People were beginning to understand
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: that this might not be a series of unrelated crimes.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: But still there was a limit to what investigators could do.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: There was no centralized system or connecting departments across cities
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: or anything like that. Remember this is the nineteen twenties.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Information moved slowly. They often relied on written reports, word
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: of mouth, or even newspaper coverage. Even within California, coordination
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: wasn't consistent. What might have been obvious in hindsight was
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: still something that they had to piece together step by step.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: And while that process was under way, while Earl's killings
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: didn't stop. In Santa Barbara, on June twenty fourth, nineteen
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: twenty six, Ollie Russell, another woman renting out rooms, was
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: found dead after being strangled. As in the previous cases,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: there were signs of a struggle, but no suspect left behind.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: In some accounts, neighbors reported hearing unusual noises, something that
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: might have been a disturbance, but nothing that triggered immediate
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: concern or response. By the time anyone realized something was wrong, well,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: it was already long over with and then less than
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: two months later, on August sixteenth, nineteen twenty six, in Oakland,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Mary in this bit was killed the very same way.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: She too had been renting out of space. She too
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: had allowed someone in her home, and once again the
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: attack followed the same pattern, quick controlled and leaving almost
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: nothing behind for investigators to work with. But by now
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: that pattern was cemented, the victims were similar, the method
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: was consistent, The circumstances lined up too closely to be
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: a coincidence, and investigators no longer asked if the cases
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: were connected. They were operating under the assumption that yes,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: they in fact were.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: M Well, gosh, he just found a way to get
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: the most easiest victims exactly, and it's like no sign
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: of stopping.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Really. But even with this profound realization from investigators, they
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: still didn't have what they needed. They had no name,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: no confirmed identity, no way to track this individual once
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: he left the city. Now, after killing Mary Nisbitt in Oakland,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: the killings had been building across California, and they seemed
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: to all of a sudden stall out for a short
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: period of time, there were no new cases that clearly
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: followed the same structure that police were After there were
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: no new reports of land ladies found strangled in their homes,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: no new scenes that matched what investigators had been slowly
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: piecing together. It looked like whatever happened had simply stopped,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: But the absence didn't mean the danger was gone. It
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: only meant that it moved. In October of nineteen twenty six,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: nearly two months later, a series of murders began in Portland, Oregon,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: and they carried the very same detail that had already
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: started to concern investigators in California. It was on October
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: nineteenth when Beta Withers was found dead inside her home.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: She had been strangled, and after her death, her body
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: had been concealed in a trunk. The discovery of what
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: had happened was made by her teenage son, who came
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: across the scene after the fact. It was a brutal,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: contained act of violence, carried out in a familiar space,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: with no immediate explanation for how it happened. But what
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: made it more alarming was what followed. The next day.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: On October twentieth, another woman, Virginia Grant, was killed the
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: same way, and then on October twenty first. The next
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: day again a third victim, Mabel Fluke, was found dead
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: in the attict of her boarding house.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: This is three days in a row.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Now, three separate victims, three consecutive days, all within the
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: same city, all showing the same pattern of access control concealment.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: That is next level. Usually you don't hear that they're
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: doing it that close together.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is fast. Now, at that point, investigators important
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: didn't have the benefit of a larger context. They were
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: dealing with what looked like a sudden cluster of three
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: related killings, and their focus was local only, trying to
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: understand who could be responsible for this and how they
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: moved through multiple homes without being stopped. But as information
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: began to circulate beyond the city, the similarities earlier in
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: other cases like California, well they came into the picture
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: as well, and it became hard to say that they
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: were not connected. See the victims in Portland, like those
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: in San Francisco, San Jose in Oakland, where women who
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: had opened their homes to someone, They were operating board
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: boarding houses and renting out rooms, and in each case
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: the person responsible had been allowed inside. The method was
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: consistent as well. Each victim was strangled and in several
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: cases their body had even been hidden somewhere within the home,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: delaying discovery and giving the killer more time to escape
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: and leave. Looking at the cases side by side, the
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: pattern wasn't subtle. It wasn't just a series of similar crimes. Now,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: it was a continuation of the same behavior, just appearing
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: in a different city. And just as suddenly as it
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: began in Portland, it stopped. There were no immediate follow
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: up killings in the area, no suspect taken into custody,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: and no clear direction for investigators to move in. The
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: person responsible had come into the city, committed multiple murders
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: in a short period of time, and then left before
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: anyone had the chance to even try to identify them.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's just disgusting, and usually assaulting all these victims
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Do you know there is evidence of sexual assault in
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: some of them, some of them, but all of them
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I do not know. And remember this is the nineteen twenties,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: so all the information is not exactly available, and information
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: that was available has been convoluted over time, and so
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: some of the things you can't definitively find. Even in
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: the one that I was certain of sexual assault, I
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: was not certain of rape, so sexual assault is all
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: I have to go on, Okay for confirmation on that. Now,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: by the time authorities began to seriously consider the possibility
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: that the same individual was responsible for both California and
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: the Oregon cases, well, he was already gone once again.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: What started out as a localized problem was now suddenly
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: something much bigger. The killings were out of control, no
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: longer confined to a single region, and the person behind
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: them wasn't staying put in one place long enough to
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: be caught. He was moving between cities, repeating the past,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: and leaving behind just enough evidence to suggest connection, but
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: not enough to stop him in the moment. Now, for investigators,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: that shift changed everything. They realized they were trying to
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: track someone who didn't stay put, someone who crossed jurisdictions
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: fast and without warning, and someone who at this point
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: had already shown he could disappear just as quickly as arriving. Now,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: the biggest problem that investigators were facing wasn't a lack
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: of effort, It was the lack of connection between it all.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: Each department was working on its own case, building up
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: its reports and following its own leads. In San Francisco
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: detectives had been focused on the early murders tied to
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: the boarding houses. In San Jose and Oakland, similar cases
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: were being investigated, and now in Portland, authorities were dealing
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: with their three killings, and each location had pieces of
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: the same story, but no one had the full picture.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: At the time, there was no centralized system to tract
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: violent crimes across cities or states. The information surrounding each
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: act didn't move quickly, and it certainly didn't move automatically either.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: If connections were going to be made, they depended on
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: investigators recognizing patterns on their own or learning about other
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: cases through newspapers, word of mouth, or delayed communication between departments.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: So think of it this way. You're in San Jose,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: you're investigating a murder, you're working towards something, You're questioning people,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: you're trying to find evidence, you have a description, and
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: you wake up one morning after already working on this
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: case for a few weeks, open up the newspaper and
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: you see a report that a week ago someone was
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: killed in the same manner in Portland. And now you
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: need to connect the dots. Now you need to get
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: a hold of people in Portland. You need to see
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: what's happening in their investigation, the information they're finding out,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: see if the descriptions are the same. How do you
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: even do that?
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because at the time, this is just almost
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: an impossible task exactly.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: So they were just left trying to catch up in
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: the wake of someone who is moving so fast. By
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: the time they found anything out, he was already killing
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: in a whole other city.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Honestly, even nowadays, that would be a bit difficult.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: The fact that he's moving around so much like this. Yeah,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: that's that just makes it seem so daunting. I don't
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: even know how you'd go about it.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: Well, there'd be delays today, like delays through telecommunications or
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: emails or anything. You still need to have the realization
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: that something's happening, and then you, you know what, call email, whatever,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: alert another jurisdiction in another city, and then relay information
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: back and forth.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: Well, and nowadays too, I think in this kind of situation,
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: you would have, you know, some evidence, some contact with
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: this person right somewhere on a phone or whatever. But
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: back then, he's probably just like there's a sign outside
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: and he's showing up, and these people don't even know
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: his freaking name or anything.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's not even a trail. Yeah, and back then,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: when you know you have investigators trying to communicate, it's letters,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: you know what, it takes days, weeks to arrive and
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: then back and forth communication between it all. By the
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: time any realization happens, it is far too late.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Meanwhile, yeah, other people are just getting killed.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: So basically, this timing made a major problem. By the
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: time any sort of details from one CD reached another,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: whoever was responsible had already moved on. And what it
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: made it more difficult was how he operated. He didn't
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: force his way into homes, he didn't draw attention to
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: himself in public. Instead, he relied on normal every day interactions,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: responding to advertisements, asking about rooms, presenting himself as someone
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: looking for a place to stay. And, as you pointed out,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: with zero trail in his wake.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: And honestly, he's leaving very little behind too with his killings.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Yep. So gosh. And so by the time anything seemed wrong,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: it was already over and investigators had no idea who
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: he was. They they didn't know where he would go next.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Even they had no reliable way to warn other cities
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: in time nothing. This was the limitation of the system
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: at the time, the idea of tracking a single offender
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: across multiple states, across multiple cities. It wasn't something law
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: enforcement was equipped to do efficiently. It hadn't happened like
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: this before, and as a result, the investigation remained reactive.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Each new crime scene added another piece to the puzzle,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: but those pieces were being collected after the fact, and
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: not in a way that could stop anything that would
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: be coming next. And all while investigators were trying to
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: connect the dots in the wake of each murder, the
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: man they were looking for was already moving again, entering
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: new cities, finding new victims, and repeating the same pattern.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: It seemed absolutely hopeless. However, that feeling of hopelessness soon
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: changed into the feeling of hope on November of nineteen
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: twenty six, when someone survived an encounter with the Gorilla
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: Killer and was able to tell police about it. And
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: I think that's where we're going to stop Part one. Okay.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: I always get on the edge of my seat because
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: I'm like, Okay, he's gonna stop now. No, Okay, we're
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: still going He's gonna stop now. It's like a little
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: game I play, and I going ahead of anxiety of
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: when you're gonna stall.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: That's the game of part ones and part two's and
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: breaking it down.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: You know, something else I have to comment to is
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: the fact that this guy is doing this to some
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: of these women when other people are in the freaking house. Yeah,
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: I don't need I can't even comprehend that. So, like
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: he's he's almost just gotten this. Well even one of
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: his first ones was like this, but he's gotten this
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: down to kind of just like a t like he
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: knows he knows what he's doing, which is freaking terrifying. Shit.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it'll have to be part two next time,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: and I'll tell you how this plays out, but for now,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: thank you guys for being here. Don't forget to check
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: the description of this podcast. And Nichole's gonna hate me
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: for a few days while she waits on what happens next.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: And until then, well.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: I know, I'm still just waiting here, Okay, but we'll wait.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: We'll wait. Good things are worth waiting, So stay wacked.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: B No