The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
During the 1920s, Earle Leonard Nelson killed 22 women across the United States and Canada after sexually assaulting them. Born in 1892, Nelson was struck by a streetcar as a child and suffered a trauma to his head, which caused him chronic pain for several years. He may have suffered permanent brain damage from it as well, for he began to display odd behavior afterward. At the age of 16 he was sent to a home for mental defectives after assaulting a child. He escaped from the facility three times and likely committed his first murder in San Francisco in 1926 when he strangled the owner of a rooming house. Over the next several months Nelson repeated the crime as he traveled from California to Philadelphia. Most victims were women who ran boarding houses or advertised rooms in their homes for rent.
Nelson moved to Winnipeg in the summer 1927 and soon committed two murders there. Police inquiries led to a second-hand clothing dealer who reported that a man had come in to barter his clothes and then changed into his new outfit inside the store. A fountain pen he left behind was traced to the home of one of the victims, and Nelson was arrested near the U.S. border. At his trial in Winnipeg, Nelson's lawyers claimed that he was insane, but prosecutors pointed out that Nelson planned his murders and escapes quite carefully. He denied committing murder at all. A jury found him guilty, and he was hanged in January of 1928. The slayings inspired the 1943 Alfred Hitchcock film Shadow of a Doubt.