Bestial: The Savage Trail of a True American Monster - Softcover

Schechter, Harold

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743483359 ISBN 13: 9780743483353

Publisher: Pocket Star, 2004

Synopsis

Harold Schechter, who delivers "must reading for true crime buffs" (Ann Rule), unravels one of the most gruesome and historically significant cases of American serial murder in Bestial. Violent crime was on the rise in the Jazz Age, and gangland carnage made flashy headlines. But few could conceive of who -- or what -- orchestrated the acts of barbaric murder and unimaginable defilement that commenced in San Francisco in the winter of 1926. The savagery of Earle Leonard Nelson -- a hulking creature dubbed "the Gorilla Man" -- shocked a nation weaned on the fictional nightmares of Edgar Allan Poe and distant legends of the Whitechapel murders. A child of unnatural obsessions and an aberrant sex drive, he grew to become a social outcast whose perverse behavior erupted in a sixteen-month spree of butchery that would not be equaled until decades later, by the likes of John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer.

About this title

Review:

Earle Leonard Nelson may well have been America's first serial killer. In the winter of 1926, he began a string of murders that spanned the U.S. and Canada, horrifying and confounding both the public and the police. Bestial tells the story of Nelson's life--from his bizarre childhood to his ignoble end--sparing no graphic detail in the process. If there is an answer to the question of why this man murdered, it is in this book somewhere. Everything about Nelson seems bizarre, from his family to his eating habits to his religious obsessions. But strangest of all was his compulsion to kill--for no imaginable reason. He killed women of all ages, from all walks of life, seemingly with no remorse.

Bestial reads like fast-paced fiction, complete with action, plot twists, suspense, and eerie foreshadowing. The book is compelling and elegantly written, and the story provides chilling insights into the motivations of a man who killed for killing's sake. --Lisa Higgins

From the Back Cover:

FROM SOCIAL OUTCAST TO NECROPHILE AND MURDERER -- HIS APPALLING CRIMES STUNNED AN ERA

San Francisco, the 1920s. In an age when nightmares were relegated to the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe and distant tales of the Whitechapel murders, a real-life monster terrorized America. His acts of butchery have proved him one of history's fiercest madmen.

As an infant, Earle Leonard Nelson possessed the power to unsettle his elders. As a child he was unnaturally obsessed with the Bible; before he reached puberty, he had an insatiable, aberrant sex drive. By his teens, even Earle's own family had reason to fear him. But no one in the bone-chilling winter of 1926 could have predicted that his degeneracy would erupt in a sixteen-month frenzy of savage rape, barbaric murder, and unimaginable defilement -- deeds that would become the hallmarks of one of the most notorious fiends of the twentieth century, whose blood-lust would not be equaled until the likes of Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer.

Drawing on the "gruesome, awesome, compelling reporting" (Ann Rule) that is his trademark, Harold Schechter takes a dark journey into the mind of an unrepentant sadist -- and brilliantly lays bare the myth of innocence that shrouded a bygone era.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket Star
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0743483359
• ISBN 13: 9780743483353
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 384