The Dark Strangler, Every Landlady's Nightmare | Part 1: Earle Nelson | Portland, Oregon

From San Francisco to Winnipeg, he carried a worn Bible and a strange but seemingly polite smile. He answered ads about homes for sale and rooms for rent where he was invited in by unsuspecting, vulnerable women. Between February 1926 and June 1927, twenty-two women and one eight-month-old baby lost their lives to Earle Leonard Nelson – the man newspapers of the day called the 'Dark Strangler,' the 'Gorilla Man,' and the 'Gorilla Killer.'  Four of those killings took place in Portland, with three occurring in a single week.Earle Leonard Nelson was almost certainly the first serial sex murderer of the twentieth century in America; a distinction most true crime listeners have never heard because his crimes predate the term "serial killer" by roughly half a century. As an orphaned child in San Francisco, he suffered what many believe was a devastating and life-altering accident that seemed to break something in him.  We follow him through repeated stints at Napa State Mental Hospital, and into the cross-country killing spree that made him briefly the most-hunted man in North America. His Portland victims – Beata Withers, Virginia Grant, Mabel Fluke, and Blanche Myers, killed between October and November of 1926 – led to what may have been one of, if not the first serial-killer safety advisories in American history, issued by the Portland Police Bureau. Amidst the chaos of his killings, we’ll also talk about the unlikely survivors and other victims slain in his brutal spree across the country. Though the trail comes to a final conclusion, eerily on Friday, January the 13th, of 1928 in Winnipeg, his confirmed count of twenty-two would stand as the American record for nearly fifty years.  Then the case, and the man, despite massive impact at the time, quietly slipped out of public memory.If this story moves you, we'd love it if you shared the episode - it helps the show, and most importantly the story deserves to be remembered. Visit our website! Find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Patreon, & more! There are so many ways that you can support the show: BuyMeACoffee, Spreaker, or by leaving a rating & review on Apple Podcasts. Sources