After Nelson's lawyers failed to convince a jury that the killer was severely mentally ill and thus incapable of bearing responsibility for his reign of terror, he was found guilty of the murder of Emily Patterson. Nelson was executed by hanging in Winnipeg on January 13, 1928.
The disturbing legacy that Nelson leaves behind is unique in the field of crime. In particular, his string of sex-infused murders took place before "serial killer" was an official classification, per All That's Interesting. According to NPR, it was FBI investigator Robert Ressler who coined the term "serial killer" and was responsible for the advent of the process of criminal profiling in the 1970s that is now used to link different murders to the same suspect.
The rise of profiling and probing of serial killers was explored in Netflix's "Mindhunter." Without this investigative technique, murderers like Nelson and their victims would likely still be enigmas that make up a mysterious puzzle impenetrable to law enforcement and criminal science.
