10 evil serial killers who escaped from custody (+Pics)

5. Earle Nelson

Born May 12, 1897, in San Francisco, California, Earle Nelson grew up in a strict religious family. He also suffered a terrible head injury that left him unconscious for six days. After the incident, he appeared to recover, but Nelson grew up to become a troubled man.

In May 1918, he was arrested for trying to molest a young girl and placed in a mental institution. However, he kept escaping. While he was on the lam, the hospital simply discharged him, so they didn’t have to put resources into continually catching him. A few years later, he was committed again for threatening the wife whom he married after escaping. In May 1925, Nelson escaped once more. Still, hospital officials didn’t go after him.

A few months after escaping, Nelson traveled all the way to Philadelphia, where he went on a two-year murder spree that claimed 26 victims. Most of the time, he targeted landladies by pretending to be a renter. Once he had the women alone, he strangled them and performed necrophilia on the bodies. He also stole items from the victims and pawned them. Using that as his only income, Nelson hitchhiked across the US, killing women in Stockton, Portland, Seattle, Council Bluffs, Kansas City, Buffalo, Detroit, and Chicago.

After killing a woman in Chicago, Nelson hitchhiked into Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, where he murdered yet another woman and a 14-year-old girl. After a store owner recognized Nelson near the small town of Wapoka, Manitoba, he was arrested heading toward the US border.

Taken to the town’s small police department, he was placed in a cell. When the town’s only police officer left to call Winnipeg, Nelson searched the cell, found a rusty nail, and used it to break out. He fled to the train station, where he hopped on the first train heading south.

However, Nelson had boarded a train carrying a number of Winnipeg detectives who recognized him. He was rearrested, convicted of one murder, and sentenced to death. Nelson, also known as the “Gorilla Killer,” was hanged on January 13, 1928, in Winnipeg.