The Dark Strangler, Every Landlady's Nightmare: Earle Nelson | Portland, Oregon

0:01 Nelson escaped at least three times before hospital staff simply stopped attempting to locate him. Oh my god. Yeah, yeah, this is some old time he shit. They were likely a little bit overwhelmed at the time, after all, you know, kind of a few things going on. Like we can't keep chasing this guy. No, like we simply we simply calmed. His frequent escapes earned him the nickname Houdini among the staff, which, honestly, it's far too whimsical a nickname for this, very clearly on whimsical bitch. Hi, Kathy, Hi, Caitlyn, Hi, creepy people. Hello, that was a little a little groggy, he or you?

0:51 Uh well, I feel like I'm following in your energy, so maybe. Sorry, I'll try to pick up pick the vibe. Now, you're you're all right, You're all right. I get it. I did not sleep in today, and I'm sure that I'm going to be feeling that later. I will be groggy at a later time. I'm just getting it over with now. Yeah. I admire how proactive you are. Thanks, I try. You're welcome. Okay. This is PNW Hanson Homicides, where we chat about true crime.

1:35 The paranormal and all things spooky in the Pacific Northwest. We also do little taro reading at the end of every episode for a bit of deeper insight into our topic. And if ever there was a case that was so long that we I was like, God, do we cut the taro for time? But we won't. We won't do that. We wouldn't do that to you. No, that's that's sacrilege. All right, we're gonna We're gonna keep it, uh, straight to business and get right to it this this go around.

2:16 I remember when I first learned about Israel Keys. The thing is as scary as he is. The thought that he might not be the first of his kind was absolutely terrifying. The fact that he's not the only is terrifying. I wish there was something that we could do to identify them. But if there's one thing Bundy has taught us, it's that we often can't until it's too late. So what do we do, like avoid all men? Yeah, well, easy to say when you already shnagged that ring. I know, ladies, while I wouldn't say, we're necessarily talking about an exact one to one today in terms of comparison to Israel Keys or Ted Bundy for that matter. The Pacific Northwest did lose multiple victims to this man who's so soon become somewhat lost to history. Love that for him, well except for that one Hitchcock film, so even that isn't like, oh, he's like immortalized through this like super you know, like cult classic like it is, but also it's not like one of the better known ones, you know, Earl Leonard Ferrell.

3:42 And there's some debate about the spelling, but we're going with Ferrell literally spelled fe r r al was born May twelfth of eighteen ninety seven in San Francisco. It's not my favorite version of the spelling, but I will say I'm kind of just glad it's not the same as mine. Yeah right, because spoiler he was far from being a San Francisco treat woo. Yeah. He was orphaned before his second birthday and raised by his maternal grandmother, Jenny Nelson, whose surname he eventually took. His mother, Francis Nelson, was of Danish and Irish descent and had been born in Iowa. His father, also born in Iowa, James Carlos Ferrell, was of Jewish ancestry. Don't get emotionally attached because unfortunately or fortunately, they will not be sticking around for story time with us, as implied by the fact that he was orphaned before his second birthday.

4:51 But okay, I didn't catch on to that. Yeah, well darn yeah. Yeah, don't get emotionally invested in them as characters. They both died as a result of contracting syphilis, which, yeah, it doesn't sound like a fun way to go, but it was a popular one for a while there. Yeah, a lot of people died of civilis. His grandmother, Jenny, was a devout Pentecostal, still raising two of her own younger children, Willis and Lillian, who were both roughly a decade older than Earl, which is kind of I always find that sort of odd. It's kind of off putting.

5:39 You have like a aunt and uncle that are essentially only a decade older than you, and then you're being raised alongside them. That's got to be kind of awkward. Yeah, a lot of it. Maybe maybe that's just me. Family dynamics, yeah, they can be complicated. Though he was raised in a deeply religious household, earl behavior became increasingly disturbing throughout his upbringing. He was expelled from his primary school in San Francisco at age seven dang so young, very young, for what was described as morbid conduct.

6:20 I want to know, but I don't. Yeah, and fortunately or unfortunately, it's unclear what exactly occurred. But it certainly doesn't seem to bode well. Yeah, to expel a seven year old like that, it has to be really. Bad, right, It's got to be pretty extreme behavior. He was a lone wolf type, likely in no small part due to his violent outbursts, petty theft, and other strange behavior. His grandmother described episodes of him leaving for school in clean clothes and returning in attire that had been reduced to essentially rags, as if he had swapped garments with an unhoused person.

7:03 Oh, I mean, that's all. It's a little unsettling, Like, how does a kid do that much damage to, you know, their clothing in that Like. It'd be sweet if he actually was trading his clothes, But no, he's just like destroying his own clothes that they love. Strastically different. Okay, he's sure just ravaging the clothing somehow. And I crawling around in the woods, right, I just feel like people also stereotypically had a lot less clothing in this era. Yeah, you had to like fix everything right. There was no such thing as fast fashion, so you weren't getting a new top from she and every other week.

7:48 Yeah. She also recalled that he quoted scripture in what felt like a compulsive manner. He quoted Scripture. Yes, okay, like compulsively, like to a degree that was not normal to a woman who was extremely religious. Maybe the religion is like affecting his mental health, that's the reason here. Yeah, I feel as though it seems like, even at this early stage, kind of a fair assumption that's something. There's a screw loose, and whether or not the religion is playing a role is debatable. But Yike's Rachel, his female cousin, said that he had watched her undress on multiple occasions and from here, if things weren't looking bad enough, it's honestly an absolute avalanche. It's it's not good. When Nelson was about ten or eleven, he was struck head on by a moving streetcar as he was riding his bicycle.

8:58 Well, shit, yeah, I. Feel like, you know, things weren't going well to begin with. But uh, that isn't going to do him any favors. According to some sources, at the time, doctors didn't anticipate that he would ever recover. They didn't really expect that he would survive, probably because he was left with a horrific head injury, some sources even indicating that he was left with a literal hole in his head. Yikes, yeah, which that made me wonder if this was the origin story for the idiom about like a hole in your head. But actually, it turns out it comes from a Yiddish saying, which oddly enough still kind of tracks since his father was Jewish. Either way, etomology is so interesting, Well, rabbit hole, we have to find the little pockets of light where we can. He remained unconscious for nearly a week. When he woke, family members described a permanent change in him, severe headaches, occasional dizziness, memory lapses, and periods of talking to invisible people, and then a lot of the behaviors that were already an issue. It kind of just seems like they escalated at this point.

10:22 Oh no, yeah, you would hope it would just like maybe change him for like change those parts of him, you know, right, which changes other parts yeah. I mean, not that anyone wants the practice of lobotomy to be picked back up, but one of the things that they were pursuing there was that it typically made people very docile, and it's like, couldn't have had that in this case, Like, right, it's unfortunate. He continued the practice of obsessively reading the Book of Revelation. It is revelation.

11:02 I always want to say revelations. It is indeed revelation singular. I don't care. Yeah, So he continued that practice as a teenager and could quote and could quote long passages from memory, a habit that he would later weaponize with his victims, which isn't really something that I'm gonna get into, like in great detail. Let's just say like there's kind of a thread of like this guy feels like he may be experiencing kind of some sort of almost religious psychosis. That's kind of it's a broader theme. In his early teens, Nelson began frequenting brothels and bars in San Francisco's Barbary Coast Red Light District. That's where he contracted of venereal disease.

11:57 Given the prevalence of syphilis at the time, if I had to guess, that would be it. But I did not see it specifically confirmed in any of my source material. It just said venereal disease. So also because it was like still killing people in this era, you know, maybe it was something else. I don't know how did he get that though. Didn't he just go to like the red light district to read them scripture? Yeah you know, that's a really good point, I would have assumed. Yeah, yeah, weird. Yeah, excellent observation, Cassie. Thank you. He grew into an unusually strong, physically fit young man of stocky build, and I'm immediately picturing like the guys of Jersey Shore. But then source material goes on to say with disproportionately long arms and hands. Okay, he would occasionally entertain his family by walking on his hands or lifting heavy objects with his teeth, thereby lending credence to a later moniker, which we will come back, and I think I think you'll understand the connection. Earl's documented criminal record began in nineteen fifteen, at age eighteen, when he was sentenced to two years at San Quentin State Prison for breaking into a cabin in rural plumous County, California.

13:27 He would claim he believed the cabin had been abandoned because I guess for some reason he thought that would have made it okay, still my yours? Yeah, kind of a I feel like that's the important distinction, is that, uh yeah, still breaking an entering, you know, squatter's right. Yeah, I don't think that was really so much a thing At that point he was gonna champion that. He was parolled on September sixth, nineteen sixteen, and roughly six months later, on March ninth, nineteen seventeen, he was arrested again for petty larceny under the alias Clark and served another six month sentence.

14:15 I'm Clark, I'm Clark. Now, got last name Clark? Nope, just Clark. Yeah. I don't know if that was supposed to have been his first or last name. I'm not really sure. He's just trying to pull a share. I like to picture it that way. Yeah, honestly, I prefer that it helps lighten the mood a little bit. Then, in late nineteen seventeen, Nelson enlisted in the US military, but he deserted mere weeks later. No, I know, I'm so surprised. That this guy is just not a stand up in rollie.

14:57 I don't think his mental health could take it, like I think it would have broken him. Well, you know, it's interesting that you say that, because if he is not indeed already broken. Yeah, then in another seemingly compulsive pattern, which I will say, there's a lot of compulsive patterning in this, he would alternate between the Army and the Navy enlisting before again deserting duty a handful of weeks later. Why unclear. There's a lot of why. He was said to have done this four times, each time using a different alias. So Clark Clark, I mean it is okay, like brain injury stuff like you don't maybe always know why you're doing what you're doing, or you make do things that don't make sense, or Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of things in his back background that might lend to an explanation, not excusing any of his behavior, but might help us to understand why certain things occur. During a brief stint in the US Navy in nineteen eighteen, his erratic behavior led to being committed at the Napa State Mental Hospital, the first of several stays there. In fact, a Navy psychologist recorded

16:31 that he was quote living in a constitutional psychotic state, which feels like a very loaded statement. Oh that didn't sound good. No, it turns out it's wildly negative. It's largely bad. Yeah. William Pritchard, a psychiatrist at the NAPA Hospital who conducted a preliminary interview in May of that year, wrote of him he had seen faces, heard music, believed people were poisoning him, and reported hearing voices whispering to him to kill himself. Shit.

17:11 He also complained of occipital headaches like basically migraines. It like specifically refers to a type that happens when nerves are pinched or hurt, and it has like a very specific way of like traveling through your head and neck. It sounds not great, but also not entirely unfamiliar. Yeah, right, I think I could probably uh feel that. One, Yeah, you know, and then the fainting spells and dizziness not ideal, no, but you know, if you're having the occipital headaches, I feel like feeling like you're about to faint or that you're dizzy. That kind of tracks as if the hospital staff wasn't already dealing with enough stretch and strained between the influenza pandemic at the time and a whole ass world war because nineteen eighteen wor stuff World War One and then the flu pandemic.

18:12 Damn. So it was. It was rough times. They were stretched a bit thin. Nelson escaped at least three times before hospital staff simply stopped attempting to locate him. Oh my god. Yeah, yeah, this is some old time. You should. They were likely a little bit overwhelmed at the time, after all, you know, kind of a few things going. On, like, we can't keep chasing this guy. No, like we simply we simply calmed. His frequent escapes earned him the nickname Hudni among the staff, which, honestly, it's far too whimsical a nickname for this very clearly on whimsical bitch.

18:55 Yeah. At twenty one. In March of nineteen nineteen, he was arrested in Los Angeles for burglary under the name Ferrell, a slight respelling of his own birth surname. And this time I take personal offense because it is spelled my way and I'm not into it. It's also either the laziest alias in his career, thus far or an early sign of how carelessly he'd come to move through the world under different names, because it's like, it's not even that far off from what your actual original last name was. Yeah, and you change like one letter or.

19:37 Right, like come on, man. This time he apparently had no intention of serving his time. He spent approximately five months in Los Angeles County jail before escaping from custody there as well. So Houdini, yeah. I mean concerning that, not only is he escaped being from mental health facilities and listen, it was a very different time, but also from jail. Yeah, so I mean certainly not the only dude that was, you know, doing that do but come on, uh, he was a slippery one.

20:21 He was formally discharged from the Navy in absentia in May nineteen nineteen, roughly a year after his original commitment to the mental health hospital that came about due to his service. So they were like, yeah, I guess I think he's done now. Yeah bye. Yeah, everybody was just like bye. His hospital file was closed with a no indicating he had and this is a quote improved. I guess improvement is something we should always consider in relative terms, but literally what improved.

21:01 How they said he had improved. Yeah, yeah, oh I improved you mean escapade? Yeah, then sure, but like just change up the wording so it sounds good, right, right. We don't have we can't get him back. Yeah, and that's better for us, so we view that as an improved. Yeah, he improved. He's it's much improved for us around here, that is true. Okay. Under yet another alias Evan Lewis Fuller, he took a job as a janitor at Saint Mary's Hospital in San Francisco.

21:43 There he met Mary Martin. And the density of Mary's in this section is a little rough, so let me know if you need me to to repeat or explain. Okay. There he met Mary Martin, an administrative worker reportedly decades his senior, old enough to be his grandmother. They married in August nineteen nineteen, only lasting though this marriage mere months of cohabitation. Weird, been there. I can't imagine why. Yeah, I mean, sometimes you're in a relationship and it turns out as soon as you move in together, everything just implodes. Yeah, I get it.

22:26 Like, man, she's not baking me those cookies, no more, right, I'm just I was. Trying to think of other old lady things, right. Very like grandma things. And she saw knitting my socks, right, darning my socks. I don't know why it's all on her. I'm just being no, but you know what, it's the misogyny. Well it's not even that though, because I think without even realizing it, you might be sort of glomming onto what is going to become like a really significant and peace I don't even know how to explain it without just saying his issues, whatever they might precisely be with older women, that's going to be a significant factor in the rest of this story. Oh no, okay, oh no, yeah yeah. M Martin later testified that he had subjected her to jealous rages, religious delusions, bizarre sexual demands, and that he engaged in strange behaviors such as prolonged disappearances from the home. And also he did this thing where he would pour glasses of water over his toes like it was a form of bathing.

23:48 Was he what's that? What's the thing that they do the baptism? He's baptizing right, yeah, and washing the feet of Christ like that's sort of a biblical thing as well. How did I don't. Even get to the point of marrying him, is like, how did he pretend to be normal enough to get married? I don't know. I mean, the thing is is that people got married a lot quicker then, and it was a lot easier. I think in these very short term like courtships to hyde crazy. It's just it's hard for me to picture him doing that. But I mean, obviously he did well enough. Right, yeah, somehow to some degree. But I mean pouring glasses of water over your toes as a form of bathing, I just sir, this is a Wendy's Like.

24:40 At least he didn't have dirty feet. I well, I don't know. It's debatable. I feel like we can't really pull it that thread anymore. But I'm okay with it, you know, babe. He bathe as often as you need. I you know. I just worry though that based on the description, like are the toes the only thing being bathed? I just clean? Yeah, I just I have follow up questions. I don't know that I want the answers to them, but they're they're rattling around in there, so for what that's worth. On May nineteenth, nineteen twenty one, Nelson posed as a Plumber to enter the home of twelve year old Mary Summers at fifteen nineteen Pacific Avenue in San Francisco. Once inside, he attempted to sexually assault the young girl in the basement.

25:40 Fortunately for her, when she screamed, her younger brother came to her aid, oh, I know, and she's only twelve, so I don't know what these young brother I know, I'm not sure exactly how old he was, but either way, I'm like, oh, he probably saved her life. Yeah, or saved its some trauma at least at minimum. But yeah, I mean, I don't think that it was going to end well, and I don't think that she was intended to survive that encounter. So he was arrested hours later. While writing the trolley because you know the San Francisco dy have the trolley. It's again. It just really it sounds so whimsical and old, tiny and cues, and then the backstory is just so not that but.

26:39 Just Houdini on a trolley. I didn't just try to murder a twelve year old girl. Right exactly? Yeah, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Following this offense, a competency hearing found him dangerous. M h no dah. He was then recommitted to the NAPA State Mental Hospital. I'm sure, much to the chagrin of any of the current staff familiar with his previous antics. They sent him back to the same place he kept escaping from. Yeah, can you imagine he's just gonna do it again. This guy's dangerous. I know what to do with him.

27:22 Yeah, let's send him back to the place that he kept escaping from, famously kept escaping from. He already knows how to get out. Yeah, oh my god. Okay. Before his eventual discharge in nineteen twenty five, he would escape twice more from the. Hospital only twice. Only twice. You know, that's an improvement over his previous escape record. He was tired. I guess The following year would mark the beginning of his known killing spree. So everything up to this point is really kind of like his low key background. It's really just like the years when he was I would say, more of a nuisance than anything.

28:10 Yeah, but definitely like his escalation. Yes, as we go through, I think escalation is so interesting to kind of examine in the context of all of his crimes and the story because you can really see it laid out. It's very interesting and I'll try to, you know, kind of touch on it throughout. But Nelson's victims were overwhelmingly middle aged women. Apparently, I'm like, is that mommy issues, grandma issues, ex wife issues, all of the above. He frequently targeted female landlords or women operating boarding houses, as well as women that were showing their own properties currently on the market for sale. He'd scanned the classified section for room rental and houses for sale to locate victims. Arriving well dressed, carrying a clearly worn Bible exhibiting a polite, relatively calm demeanor hardly made him seem like much of a threat, effectively disarming his victims, or most of them.

29:18 That Bible man. I know, not the Bible man couldn't be him. Witnesses from multiple cities where he would eventually strike described him as mild mannered, charming, soft spoken on first impression, and chillingly unusually well versed in scripture and all of it's terrible. But for some reason that part really unsettles me. Yeah, it does, because it's like so clearly at odds with what he actually is. I think, Yeah, that's why it's it's uncomfy. Once alone with the victim inside the home, Nelson would strangle her, typically with an item from her own environment a cord rag scarf for another article of clothing.

30:11 He then sexually assaulted the corpse before concealing the victim's body and stealing small items from the victims, such as cash, clothing, or jewelry. In some cases, among them victims in Portland. He went to unusual lengths to conceal the victim's body, like using steamer trunks or putting them in the attic. He would then travel, often hitchhiking or stowing away on freight trains, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of miles before killing again. I just have had a horrified look on my face this whole time. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't always translate for audio, but sometimes you can feel the weight of silence, and so hopefully that's what everyone is.

30:56 Yeah. I'm also going to say here that even as a true crime podcaster, one truly can hit the limit with certain words, and in this case specifically, I'm referring to rape or sexual assault. The descriptions of the crimes committed against individual victims, by and large, do not deviate from the MO I've just described. As I was drafting, if I had not sort of agreed amongst me, myself and I that we didn't need to repeatedly list off all of the different aspects of his EMO, I was like, we're just going to be saying rape or sexual assault like dozens of times.

31:42 Yeah, I'm okay with that. So aside from one victim who completely breaks the mold on his m you can assume that, even if I don't specifically state it, Unfortunately, his victims were, with almost zero exception, violated it this way after death. It's so ikey, and the after death part is particularly yes, icky, But in a way, I'm like, God, at least maybe they weren't experiencing that. Yeah, Yeah, that's true. That is the only thing that I find that I can sort of try to grasp that as Okay, it's not great, but it helps me feel a little bit better.

32:32 Like one thing didn't add to the horrific murder they experienced, like the things they went through already. Yeah yeah. Physical descriptions from witnesses were consistent enough that newspapers had a working sketch of him well before capture. A dark stocky man with a receding hairline, protruding lips, long arms, and unusually large hands. These features led the San Francisco Press to nickname him the gorilla Man and gorilla killer. Oh. Others tracking his westward then eastward migration called him the dark strangler.

33:15 I like gorilla man, better. Put a pin in that you might not love it. Witnesses who had brief encounters with him repeatedly sighted his dark piercing eyes as his most memorable feature. So the racism of it all am I right? Oh yeah, I guess. Because these gorilla comparisons weren't invented for white men like Earl Nelson, but could be used to dehumanize him very effectively all the same. And while there's a large part of me that is okay with dehumanizing a violent, sexual serial killer, these racist tropes that had been used against black men for decades, if hundreds of years, really were simply being repurposed because his behavior didn't match up with white society's own self image. So by committing the crimes that he did, it was like he gave up his whiteness in a way.

34:25 Ew yeah, interesting, I was just like he's got big hands and these, Harry, I get it. Right, right, And in that sense, yes, if it weren't for some of like kind of the very pointed language that was like it. They were clearly drawing parallels to how this type of like racist charged language was applied in other situations. I would say, oh, great, yeah, it's just but it's very rarely that simple and certainly not in this era. It it's a little ichy, and by that I mean a lot ichy actually. But at the peak of his spree, Nelson averaged one murder roughly every three weeks. In the ten days between June first and June tenth of nineteen twenty seven, he killed at least five women across three cities and one international border.

35:23 Not so many, I know, you know. And the other thing, it's just occurring to me too, because I was like, I feel like I have to caution you, like no, you don't like the gorilla thing. And I'm like, it's so telling that like through a more modern lens and like not really thinking about it in those like you're not having the mindset of like, oh, I'm drawing this parallel to him being like, you know, an African American man making them into like an animal. Yeah. So it's like because I don't know, it's just that just sucks. It just sucks. Yeah.

36:04 I mean his other nickname though, too was like what the dark Strangler? That too cool? Right, exactly? Yeah, I don't want to give him the cool factor. I know. Yeah, there's you know, honestly, there's just there's kind of no winning with giving them sort of a moniker. It feels like, but can we just call them all shithead? Right? Shithead number one, shit right number ten? Yeah, shithead number or you know, shithead of Cincinnati or you know. Yeah. Nelson's first known murder took place in San Francisco at twenty thirty seven Pierre Street, where he murdered sixty year old Clara B. Newman on February twentieth of nineteen twenty six. To gain entry, he posed as a prospective tenant using the name Roger Wilson before strangling and sexually assaulting her. Post mortem, he hid her body in a vacant apartment within the house her nephew, Merton Newman, who I'm surprised I got that out on the first take. Merton Newman feels like a little bit of a tongue twister. I don't know why. Merton Newman Senior, who lived on the second floor of the boarding house, saw Nelson as he was leaving through the front door and would later positively identify him, making him the only person to see Nelson within literal moments of any of

37:38 his crimes. Wow, most people, because there are a number of people that were able to identify him. Most people were called seeing him in the area or seeing him talking to a victim. But it was like in within a period of like days or hours leading up to a murder. It was never like right before or right after. So it was just a very direct connection to that particular murder. That is so sad for him to have seen it, not in like how long did it take for anyone to notice that she was like something was wrong with her?

38:19 I mean, I have to imagine, since he lived in that same building and you know that's a family member, she ironically was probably identified as you know, being like missing or that something was off, maybe quicker than some of the others. Over the next handful of months, Nelson went on to kill four additional women in California. March second, nineteen twenty six in San Jose. He strangled sixty three year old Laura Bale with a silken cord whilend so tightly it actually embedded in the skin of her neck. That terrific.

38:59 Yeah, acting suspiciously while similarly dressed to the real killer got another man, Joe Casssek I'm guessing on the pronunciation of the last name. It got him arrested for the crime. Initially, whoa I know, But the Austrian native was eventually cleared. Thank goodness. I know that was far from being a guarantee at that point in history. It's kind of hard to reverse the tide on something like that. Back in his stomping grounds on June tenth of nineteen twenty six, he claimed his next victim, Lillian Saint Mary, also sixty three, before moving on to Santa Barbara. That's where he carried out the murder of Olie Russell on June twenty fourth, nineteen twenty six, who was also strangled with a cord. Still, this case was different as it was the first that police explicitly connected to the earlier murders. And we are going to talk about this again because it is wild the synchronicity of like that particular case and like how it just how it plays out. Okay, So Allie Russell, that's a name that we're going to come back to.

40:23 As the summer drew to a close, he claimed another California victim on August sixteenth, nineteen twenty six. It's a week from today. Yea, yeah. Mary c nesbit in Oakland before heading north. She had been strangled with a towel and raped in the bathroom of a vacant apartment, where her husband, Stephen discovered her body. Oh god. Unfortunately, it feels like the overwhelming majority of these victims were discovered by people that have been uniquely scarred by that experience, like family members. And I cannot even fathom.

41:09 I just I and I refuse to imagine. No one should have to see that. That's no. Witnesses reported having seen a stranger with a peculiar smile outside the building. The mail carrier had taken note of seeing that same weird smiling. Weirdo, man, I. Don't like that description at all. Nope, No, how did you put it? He's a stranger with a peculiar smile. What's a peculiar smile? Like I I think that it's all in the eyes. In that case, I think he.

41:50 Had like I can't you do it because I'm. Not, Because you can't it's hard to replicate. Oh my god. Yeah, the mail carrier had taken note of seeing him lingering for about a. Week just smiling. Yeah, just hanging out, smiling creepily. Mary's husband, stephen Nesbitt, was held in jail for two days before being cleared. So that seems to be kind of a pattern as well. It's like family members are finding them and then also of other individuals, oftentimes the husband or another man for whatever reason that is unfortunately falsely accused.

42:32 That's so sad. I know, and I get why, but it's still like, right, you had to find her and then also get like accused. Right, was this the same guy that found his wife? Yeah, okay, he found her and then was initially believed to be the perpetrator, which again, like statistically, we like we understand that, like that is so often the case, but yikes. By mid October of nineteen twenty six, Nelson had made his way to Portland, where the killing of his first victim in the state, thirty five year old Beta B. Withers, marked multiple slight deviations from his normal mo o. To start, she was obviously much younger than a lot of the other women that he had previously killed, but he also seemingly went to greater lengths to conceal her body after the murder than he frequently did. It's not the only time, but he's certainly not going to this much trouble every time. He had stuffed her into a steamer trunk in the attic of her home, beneath the clothing stored inside.

43:45 Oh my god. Sadly, these measures of concealment did not prevent the discovery of her body by her fifteen year old son. No, no, I know, I know. On the date of her murder, October nineteenth, she had met with her beau at the time and her son for lunch. Witnesses established that she had seemed cheerful as she worked in her flower beds after returning from lunch that afternoon, likely because she believed the room she'd been advertising for rent for weeks finally had a take her and it was. The wrong person, it sure was.

44:26 Her son had been concerned when he returned home only to find that his mother didn't seem to be there. Even in some fashion, expressing concern that she may have taken her own life so prior to the promise of renting the room, her finances had actually begun to look quite dire, so he thought, Wow, maybe things are so bad that she killed herself. It was only after a thorough search that her body had been recovered, appearing as though she might have been smothered to death, the least referring to it as an I shit you not the strangest suicide they had ever seen.

45:07 No, because it's not. Right. Clearly, she didn't put herself. Oh my god, she didn't put herself in a trunk in the attic. Okay, but okay, we're going to spend a little bit more time on this than a lot of I couldn't, I couldn't not. So here we are far from the ppb's proudest moment, but with a caveat admittedly. Two days after the murder occurred, a story titled in all caps, poetry Inspires Suicide in Trunk appeared on the front page of The Oregonian that confirms some of the most bizarre details of the suicide theory. Police initially believed suicide because Withers had a motto or poem on her wall about putting troubles in a strong box, which is very eerie. The police literally interpreted this as her taking the phrase to mean she should stuff herself into a trunk to die. We might need to talk about symbolism, metaphor simile, you know, give them a little bit of a toolbox for understanding those things.

46:32 Man, I need to like look around my room and see what's on my walls because someone might interpret it is if I die. Right. Continuing on the train of taking everything very literally, they reconstructed the scene by having someone else get into the trunk to demonstrate that self inflicted smothering was physically possible. So there was some due diligence on that piece of things. A corner's jury was convened on October TI, twenty eighth, resulting in an even split. Half believed her death was a suicide, albeit certainly strange, and the other half were equally certain it was a homicide. Before you know, a pattern sort of becomes clear emerges if you will. So to be fair, it wasn't just the cops that were tricked into considering the theory of suicide. And here's the part that kind of it bugs me in a way about this. It's I wonder whether that was Nelson's intent.

47:34 That's perhaps a little bit harder to say, Like did he see that on her wall and go, oh, I know, I'll stuffer in a trunk and they'll think it's suicide. Maybe that's far fetched. I don't know. I don't think. I don't. I think maybe, if anything, he saw. That on the wall and inspired him, inspired him to do that. Maybe, But I think it was just a coincidence. I kind of yeah, I kind of leaned that direction as well. But something about that is just like, ugh, this is so weird. It's given all of my hebes the GBS. Nelson hadn't waited long to seek out his next victim while in Portland. He followed up Beta's murder the very next day, October twentieth, with another heinus crime, when he attacked fifty nine year old Virginia Ada Gray Grant of East twenty second Street in a vacant property that she owned. Can we just take a moment to respect I love the four names. Yeah, Virginia Ada Gray Grant.

48:43 Her body was discovered behind the homes basement furnace and her death was initially misattributed to heart failure. She did have a known health like a heart condition, and it did seem like, you know, maybe she hadn't been the most well. So I feel like in some of these cases, it's not totally unreasonable. It's just unfortunate that there were like sort of extenuating circumstances or other factors that sort of maybe led people astray at first, is all. Also, though, it was noted that some of her valuable jewelry she always wore was missing, so that that tips scale, I think as well.

49:27 For sure. Yeah, they're like, well, she didn't die and then steal her own jewelry. Now it's unclear which crime occurred first, but that very same day, Missus M. D Lewis of the Selwood neighborhood became a survivor of the Dark Strangler, WHOA Nelson arrived at the home that she was showing, muttering house for sale as he. Brushed past her. Okay, very weird and it's only going to get weirder, and I can totally see why she was like, uh, nah, I don't want none of that.

50:12 So he like wasn't being chill and like nah, tricking people like he usually does. Not super chill. Yeah, which is interesting because I think, you know, if he made his way to uh, our good friend Virginia first, and this is him just kind of becoming unhinged and the escalation ramping up, then maybe it makes sense that he didn't have any chill, or you know, maybe he went to missus M. D Lewis first and he realized he was getting a little sloppy, and so that's why he you know, got back in line before he approached Virginia. I don't know, it's hard to say. It's just an interesting aspect of it, with you know, not knowing which one occurred. First, he shouted from upstairs for her to come look at what's wrong with this door? Then when she refused from the basement, he called her, look what's wrong with this furnace? No, dude, why do you keep trying to get me to go to other rooms that are more isolated in the house and point out things that are wrong, Like just make a note. I'm not gonna follow you.

51:26 No, your penis is gonna be out or some shit. Yeah, like you're already acting odd. Come look at this phoenix, don't look at the Oh my God, that's so scary. Missus Lewis retreated outside and called for him to come see the flowers she'd planted. She's like, oh, do you can play this game? Come see this shit that's outside where everybody can see us. Get out of my house. Yeah, yeah, smart. He responded to hell with your flowers as he left. She survived by refusing to enter the rooms he directed her too. I mean, just because she trusted her gut. Really. Unfortunately, just a few blocks away, Mabel H. Fluke thirty seven would not be so lucky. She was holding an open house for the home she and her husband had previously shared before his passing two years prior. Ever, since she had been living with her parents in Saint John's and renting out the home where they had lived. She wanted to visit her brother in Independence, Oregon, and was hoping to find a new tenant before making the trip. Seemingly aware of her plans, her parents weren't initially concerned when she did not return home. She was gone overnight and they were like, that's fine. She's trying to fix up the house and get it ready and get a new renter in there. When her father did search the marital turned rental property. Finding no trace of her, he phoned

52:56 the police to report her missing. Police discovered her body in a dark corner of the attic at the rental property two days later, on October twenty third. The attics. Yeah, like, how do you even get like that? Seemed so hard to get a body up in an attic. And I just don't you know, in some of these cases, like it's impossible for us to really. Know, Like maybe he lured her up lied. Yeah, exactly, I mean it's possible. That seems to be kind of part of his mo is, sort of luring people where he wants them so that he can get them from the right angle. That has a lot to do with it because of the strangulation of it all.

53:42 She had been strangled with a dresser scarf and her jewelry had been stolen. Thankfully, these facts of the case helped investigators to quickly determine this was not yet another bizarre suicide in the city of Roses. So you know they got one they fingered it out, Yeah, and dresser scarf. I was like, what is that? Essentially it just looks like a table runner, but people used to put them on their dressers in their bedrooms and stuff that would protect it from like if you have a cup of coffee or a glass of water.

54:25 It protected it from all kinds of things, because, of course all of the furniture was made of wood. In fact, according to local historian J. D. Chandler, it was the day after the discovery of Mabel's body that Patrolman Russell of the Portland Police Bureau became the first to suggest that the recent spate of murders in the city might be the work of the Dark Strangler, who had been tormenting Californians along the coast for months. So they put it together even though it was a different state. Mm hmm. Well, and here's how I told you this was going to come back. This shit is wild. He'd received a letter from his cousin, George Russell, living in Santa Barbara at that time, whose wife, Allie Russell, had herself met her dreadful end at the hands of the strangler.

55:22 Oh no, oh my god. So otherwise they might not have known. Yeah, they might not have fully made that connection. It's hard to say, whoa because you could have an awareness of these crimes occurring in California and think like, well, that's especially back then, it's like, oh well that's that's not here, you know. Yeah. Nelson would then return to his home state once more and strike again. On November eighteenth, nineteen twenty six, A friend who had visited the victim, fifty six year old Anna Edmunds of San Francisco, recalled seeing her speaking to a strange man in her parlor regarding a business deal related to her home, so assuming that she was probably trying to sell it or like maybe rent on a room.

56:16 The following day, missus H. C. Murray, a pregnant twenty eight year old woman of Burlingame, California, was attacked by a man posing as a potential buyer while showing her home. But perhaps Nelson was getting a little bit sloppy, because she too survived. I mean, thank goodness, pregnant, she later told reporters, I realize now that he was trying to get me to look up towards the ceiling so that he could get behind me and grab my throat. Ugh, absolutely chilling. Mama bearer instinct in her right.

56:58 Well, and I will say, if you're pregnant, And I don't know how far along she was, but she's probably just like, you know what, I am so sick of men and they're just so entitled. And he's like, look over here, look at this, and she's like, you know, at the last time that I listened to a man, that's how this happened, as she points to her belly. Oh my god, it's like that movie trope of like you did this, don't worry about what's going on back here, right, pay no attention. Yeah, oh man, that's so scary though.

57:38 I know. As the holidays approached, Nelson showed absolutely no sign of slowing down, and he'd made his way back to the Pacific Northwest again. Oh okay, yep, he's a rambling man. On November twenty third, nineteen twenty six, just two days before Thanksgiving, he struck down forty eight year old wealthy widowed Seattleite Florence Fifthian Monks inside her home. What a name I know, I mean, And she sounds like seatite, my god, or and like definitely also sounds like a wealthy widow, doesn't she.

58:21 Yeah. Her body was discovered stuffed behind the basement furnace by the Holmes caretaker. Oh I know, in Portland, Oregon, just a few short hours away, her stolen jewelry would resurface. Oh yeah, cat, you know how they liked to take trophies Like that's kind of I mean not all of them, but most of them, and probably secretly all of them. In late November, still in Portland, Nelson rented a room at Sophia Yates's lodging house on Third Avenue, using the alias Adrian Harris. He spent Thanksgiving with Yates and her other lodgers, offering to pay for the entire holiday dinner and impressing them as polite, soft spoken and intelligent, but also something of a religious fanatic. You don't say.

59:22 Yes, yeah, it didn't go yet, right. He gave Yates and another lodger, Emily Crawford, pieces of jewelry as gifts, later identified as items stolen from Florence monks in Seattle. That is, it's like gross to think about him giving away like a dead woman's jewelry, but like, why are you even giving jewelry to these women that you just met? Well, and you know what I got to say, Normally I'd be like, these women are trash because they are going to live to make him regret whatever that was like I don't know why he did this, but he does, like he certainly comes to regret it. This is so fucking funny. It's like Jerry Jerry Yates received nicer gifts than Crawford. The two women argued about it, and Harris quote unquote burst into the room and said, I'm going to beat it. You two will have the police up next, then fled, leaving two days rent unused.

1:00:31 Huh. They were arguing about who got nicer gifts from him, and He's like, that is weird. Much. Yeah. I was like, okay, weird behavior on their part, but at the same time, like there is a not insignificant chance that like it might have saved one or both of their lives. So yeah, like stay petty. I guess he was. I just can't like, what was he trying to do that don't know, I don't they don't understand. I don't get it. By the end of the holiday weekend, Nelson was right back at it. That Monday, November twenty ninth, Blanche Myers forty eight, was apparently immediately uneasy upon meeting Nelson, telling the landlady just prior to the attack, I didn't like his looks very much. His looks, apparently off putting enough for her to question him about his drinking habits.

1:01:32 His weird dead eyes and right peculiar smile. Yeah, of course she was right to be suspicious. At the time, she was having lunch with a gentleman friend, but she closed the deal, returning to her midday meal with four dollars in rent paid by Nelson for the room and unfortunately fatal transaction. Later, she was strangled with a handkerchief while showing him an upstairs room. Sadly, in I just I hate it. Sadly, her son was the one to discover her body stuffed under the bed. That bed became significant as police were able to recover fingerprints from the iron bedpost, marking the first significant physical evidence in the case.

1:02:28 That's great that. That piece is that rocks that keep touching stuff? Right? Yeah, ideally just like stop touching ladies, you know, but like, please, while we're here in this situation, at least there's that. The Oregonian reported the third floor of the Portland Police Bureau became a and this is a quote veritable madhouse of citizen tips. During this time, the Portland Police Bureau issued a public warning cautioning landladies against showing rooms unaccompanied. Their acknowledgment of the situation was blunt. The statement said, I do not wish to unduly alarm the people of Portland, but there is no denying the situation is grave. This marked the end of his time in the Pacific Northwest, but he remained a free man as he traveled on to the Midwest.

1:03:30 Oh, he finally got out of there. He's like, gosh, shit, they're catching. On right exactly now. If you've made it this far, you're probably thinking, holy shit, I am about like chest height deep into this story. And that's true, but there's still a lot left to go. And then also a tarot reading. So it turns out this one's a two parter. It's long. Yeah, we're just finding that out for ourselves for certain now in this moment as we record it. So, uh, surprise. So we kind of lied to at the beginning when we said there's a tarot read in every episode.

1:04:10 I kind of intended that this might be a single episode, Like more often than not we just do like a single taro reading in that case, but this is just it's so massive and it'll only make it that much more massive to do two separate tarot readings. So we're gon we're gonna cut it there, and then we'll come back in part two and do the tarot reading. Maybe I will just do my own private, little personal reading and we won't do the full like interpretation in the episode, but maybe I'll share that so we can throw them off the scent. We can still post a tarot reading to the socials, but they'll have no idea what's coming.

1:05:00 Yeah, okay, I'm down for that. Should we say goodbye to the creepy people? Yeah, let's let's leave them hang in here? Yeah, you got this, guys. We'll see you in a week. In there exactly. That's what I was thinking of, how creepy day. We'll see you next Thursday. Unless you have weird eyes and a peculiar smile. Well, I mean actually that that definitely means we will see him again next next Thursday. Oh no, I thought we were okay, all right, yeah,