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This time, in need of money and food, Earle broke into what he
thought was an abandoned cabin, only to be surprised on his way out by
the returning owner. He fled into the nearby woods but was tracked
down by a posse and arrested. Caught red-handed, it was an
open-and-shut case, and Earle was quickly tried and convicted of
burglary. Just a little older than 18, Earle was sentenced to two
years in prison and sent to San Quentin prison.
His time behind bars passed without note, and he emerged two years
later not rehabilitated in the least. The United States was slowly
being drawn into the Great War in Europe, patriotism surged in many a
young man, including Earle Leonard Ferral, who enlisted in the U.S.
Army, hoping to serve "over there."
He went to prison as Earle Nelson, but joined the U.S. Army as
Earle Ferral, but it didn't take long for him to realize he was not
cut out for military life. Ordered to stand guard one cold night,
Nelson went AWOL and headed to Salt Lake City, Utah.
However, Nelson wasn't suited to be a Mormon and once again he
enlisted in the military: this time in the U.S. Navy. Assigned to be a
cook in San Francisco, Nelson lasted just over a month in the Navy
before he deserted. The chores, Schechter reported, were too onerous.
He bounced around the Bay area for two months before trying the
military once again, this time as a medical corpsman. Here, Nelson
began to exhibit the signs of mental illness that would later turn
into violence. He deserted again, because “burning about his anus
bothered him," Schechter wrote. In 1918, Nelson returned to the
Navy and immediately became a problem. He refused to work; instead, he
spent his time reading the Bible and prophesizing about the
Apocalypse. Within a month, he was committed to the Napa State Mental
Hospital. Nelson was 18 years old.
In his intake interview, Nelson told of a bizarre lifestyle.
He admitted to masturbating daily between the ages of 13 and 18,
"but not since then," and was an alcoholic who had not had a
drink in the last seven months. Blood tests showed evidence of
gonorrhea and syphilis, which Nelson said he contracted before his
16th birthday. He displayed a preoccupation with religion and God, and
a proclivity to flee. Twice Nelson escaped from Napa in the 13 months
he spent there, earning him the nickname "Houdini" from the
other patients, and twice he was captured and returned.
The third time he escaped, in 1919, the medical personal at Napa
didn't even bother to track him down. They simply discharged him from
the military and wrote down in his record that he had
"improved." This assessment was as wrong as the one in his
folder that reported he was "not violent; homicidal; or
destructive."
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