EARLE NELSON PAYS PENALTY FOR SLAYINGS: THE BISMARCK TRIBUNE, JANUARY 13, 1928

The Associated Press filed the story from Winnipeg on the morning it happened, and the same day it ran on the front page of The Bismarck Tribune in North Dakota. Earle Nelson, the man newspapers had called the Dark Strangler and the Gorilla Man, had been hanged at 7:41 on January 13, 1928, for the murder of Emily Patterson, a mother of two, in Winnipeg the previous June.

The report lays out the case as the police then saw it. They attributed twenty-two killings to him, starting in San Francisco on February 20, 1926, and running some seven thousand miles down the Pacific coast, across the United States to the Atlantic, and back north into Canada, where it ended in Manitoba. Twenty of the victims were women. One was Lola Cowan, a fourteen-year-old Winnipeg schoolgirl he was also accused of strangling a few days after Mrs. Patterson. One was a baby.

His defense at the six-day trial had been insanity, and records were presented showing he had been confined at different times in an asylum at Napa, California. The jury did not accept it. Nelson protested his innocence to the end, and the story closes with the minute the trap was sprung.

This is a same-day news report, not a court record, and the total it gives is the police figure of 1928, not a count proved at trial. Nelson was tried and convicted only for the murder of Emily Patterson. The twenty-two killings are what the police ascribed to him, and later estimates of the number have run higher. The paper dates Mrs. Patterson's death to June 10, 1927; other accounts put it on June 9.

The Bismarck Tribune for January 13, 1928, was published more than ninety-five years ago and is in the public domain. The scan is the Library of Congress copy in Chronicling America, and its citation and rights statement are under the scan.

Most of the column reads cleanly, but the last six or seven lines are heavily over-inked. The two years in the asylum sentence could not be read with confidence even under magnification, and they are marked [illegible] in the transcription; the Library's own machine reading fails on the same lines, so there is no second reading to check against. Everything else was read directly from the scan.

Transcription

Transcribed word for word from the page scan. Original spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and typographical errors have been kept exactly as printed. Unreadable words are marked [illegible]. Nothing has been modernised or corrected.

EARLE NELSON PAYS PENALTY FOR SLAYINGS

'Dark Strangler' Executed by Hanging in Jail at Winnipeg Early Today

Winnipeg, Man., Jan. 13.—(AP)—Earle Nelson, the "dark strangler" to whom police ascribe 22 slayings, was hanged today for the murder of Mrs. Emily Patterson.

The hanging of Nelson ended the grim story of a criminal trail, winding from the Atlantic to the Pacific, along which police ascribed the 22 murders to Nelson's brutality. He was known as "The Strangler" and "The Gorilla Man," because he was believed to have strangled all of his victims.

Mrs. Patterson, mother of two children, was slain here June 10, 1927, a few days before the killing of 14-year-old Lola Cowan, Winnipeg school girl, whom he also was accused of strangling.

Police said that Nelson, on February 20, 1926, in San Francisco, Calif., began his trail of death, which stretched for 7,000 miles along the Pacific coast, across the United States to the Atlantic seaboard, then doubled back into Canada and ended in Manitoba. Of the 22 murders for which he was blamed, 20 of the victims were women, one was the Winnipeg school girl and another a baby.

Nelson's defense at his six-day trial was insanity. Records were presented to show that the prisoner had been confined in an insane asylum in Napa, Calif., during various periods between 19[illegible] and 19[illegible].

Nelson protested his innocence to the last. The trap was sprung at 7:41.

Transcriber's notes

- Readability: good for the first two-thirds of the column, poor at the foot. The bottom six or seven lines are heavily over-inked and bled, so letter shapes close up.

- The two years in the asylum sentence are the only words that could not be read with confidence, even at high magnification; both are legible as four digits beginning "19" and are marked [illegible]. The LOC machine OCR of this page also fails on the same lines, so there is no second reading to check against. Everything else in the column was read directly from the scan.

- Kept as printed: "defense", the single quotation marks in the sub-heading against double quotation marks in the body, and the Associated Press credit printed as a small (AP) logotype, rendered here as (AP).