nude corpse of Cowan was discovered under the bed. Cowan's body, unlike that of his other victims, had reportedly been mutilated in a manner "reminiscent of [the victims of] Jack the Ripper." Her clothing and belongings were missing and it was evident the bed had been slept in, leading police to determine that Nelson had spent the night sleeping with the body beneath the bed. After the discovery of Cowan's body, Winnipeg City Council posted a C$1,500 reward for information leading to the "conviction of the criminal degenerate" responsible. This reward would subsequently become a point of dispute after several individuals came forward with information pertaining to Nelson's whereabouts. Among them included a motorist who claimed to have given Nelson a ride from Emerson to Winnipeg on the day Cowan went missing. Capture Assuming that Nelson had fled to the United States, Canadian police sent descriptions of him to all U.S. police stations and post offices. In the intervening days, sightings of Nelson were reported in Regina, Saskatchewan, and Boissevain, Manitoba. A man matching Nelson's description who gave his name as "Mike Mowski" was arrested on June 14 in the Manitoba/Minnesota border town of Warroad by Customs Officers, but he escaped the next day. On June 16, 1927, constables in Killarney, a Manitoba border town from the North Dakota border, arrested a man named "Virgil Wilson" who fit Nelson's description. His demeanor was reportedly so calm and cooperative that the constables assumed they had the wrong individual. "Wilson" was incarcerated in the local jail, but managed to escape the same evening. Nelson made the mistake of trying to catch the same train that was transporting members of the Winnipeg police, and was recaptured twelve hours after his initial escape. He was officially arrested again the next morning by an officer from the Crystal City police department, on the rail line east of Wakopa. Nelson was taken to the Rupert Street Police Station in Winnipeg where he was photographed, fingerprinted, measured, and prepared for identification lineups. Nearly 4,000 spectators awaited his arrival outside the station, hoping to glimpse the accused man. Photographs of Nelson taken by Winnipeg police were shortly sent out to police departments throughout the U.S.; this resulted in positive identifications from witnesses in Illinois and California who claimed the man was the same unknown renter they had had encounters with. Though he maintained that his identity was that