Earle Leonard Nelson aka the boutquet strangler or the Dark Strangler (died January 13, 1928) was an American serial killer.
Nelson often studied his worn Bible, using it to keep his victims at ease and off-guard around him. Once he gained their trust, he would kill them and rape their corpses.
Nelson was barely out of his teens when he tried to strangle a young girl and was hospitalised in a mental institution in 1921. He was released from the Napa mental institution in 1925 and started on his killing spree early in 1926. Nelson's victims were mostly landladies, whom he would approach on the premise of renting a room and then quickly attack and kill, often leaving their corpses under the nearest ed. By using false names and moving on quickly after he committed the murders, Nelson easily avoided capture during his eighteen-month-long murder spree.
Nelson claimed victims in several West Coast cities, throughout the upper Midwest, and finally in Canada, where he was captured in June of 1927 after two killings in Winnipeg. By that time he had murdered at least 20 women and one eight-month-old baby, and was a very highly sought criminal. He was tried and found guilty of the Winnipeg slaying of Emily Patterson, found strangled underneath her own bed by her husband; who had knelt by the bed to pray for her safe return after finding her missing on the afternoon of June 9. Patterson had been Nelson's fifth victim in just 10 days. Nelson was also known as the "Gorilla man", due to his strenght.
Nelson was hanged on January 13, 1928.
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