TRAIL OF 22 MURDERS

Evening Star, Issue 19633, 12 August 1927, Page 2

TRAIL OF 22 MURDERS

•■THE GORILLA STRANGLER"

'The Attorney General-Major has refused the public demand for a speedy 'trial of Virgil Wilson alias Earl Nelson, the alleged “ Gorilla Man Strangler.” He states that British justice necessitates a delay_ until the autumn (states the Manitoba correspondent of the London 1 Sunday News ’—June 19). ■ Mr# J. Ejll, in whose hoarding house the nude body of Lola Cowan, aged fourteen, was found, declared when confronted with Wilson among thirtytwo mem; “That’s the brute. I would recognise him among a thousand. ‘Central News.’ . A special correspondent at Winnipeg states that the “Gorilla Man” or “ has terrified the woman population of the CanadianAmerioan border, and- the police claim to have positively identified the prisoner as the much-hunted roan. Whoever he may be, the “ Gorilla Man” has as many -killings to his discredit aa “Jack the Kipper,” and he was sought for by vast numbers of armed police on horseback, m motor cars, r apl by aeroplane in Western Canada. , . , , ~. , -j Described as being _ about thirty years of age, tall, thin, with long, ape-Jike arms, from which he has been given his police appellation, he is “wanted” for no fewer than twentytwo murders, in every case the victim being a young and good-looking girl, whom ho has done to death by strangulation. Papers are stated to have been found OQ tn# map in custody which make it clear that bo formerly lived in the Liverpool district. As a'murder of the Gorilla type was committed there at the time, the victim being a young girl, the police are apsioug/to confirm accounts which Sjnr with having lived in &ngland before bis advent in America. , • The “Gorillas” trail of death in America started at San Francisco uj February last, when a young girl or eighteen was found strangled and stripped of her clothing in one of the main parks. The barking of a dog drew- the attention of the police to the girl’s body, which was perched in the branches of a. tree. Within -a few days afterwards eight other women were foully done to death, in five cases their bodies being stripped of clothing and bearing marks of great violence. : MURDERS AFTER SERMON. The “ Gorilla-Strangler ” now moved swiftly, leaving behind him a trail cf victims like a plague. Three more girls —all ' young and pretty—met their ImMs » S’oiiland, Seattle, and Council

Bull’s (Iowa). In Kansas City ho murdered yet three more women—two of whom were happily married, Terror began to sweep the Western States, and a reward of £2,000 was subscribed, while Pinkerton’s Detective Agency was asked to throw its whole organisation into trailing down the demon murderer. For a time it is known that lie travelled as a minister in an old motor car covered with religious tracts. At Virginia City (Montana) ho preached a sermon, and that same night waylaid two girls who had listened to his religious exhortations. Ono lie killed with a blow from, an axo and the other ho strangled, throwing the two bodies down a mine shaft. RECORD OF SEVENTY KILLINGS. Travelling north he was seen once in North Dakota, and a posso of GOO men armed to the teeth chased him into the hills, where ho uinnaged to give them the slip. Two days later another murder was committed 100 miles away, tho victim—a mere child of sixteen—being decapitated! After tho “Gorilla-Strangler” had crossed the border from tho United States to Canada ho had already in a few hours found two victims at Winnipeg. Ono of them, Lola Cowan, a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl, he enticed into a boarding house where ho was staying, and, after taking her clothes away from her, strangled her and left her 'bound to a chair—afterwards disappearing.