Lester Brockelhurst

Lester Warfel Brockelhurst Jr. (January 4, 1914 – March 18, 1938), known as The Crime Tourist, was an American spree killer and serial killer who, together with his girlfriend Bernice Felton, killed at least three men in holdups during a six-week crime spree across multiple states in 1937. Found guilty of the final murder, Brockelhurst was executed at the Tucker Unit the following year.

Early life Lester Jr. was born in Peoria, Illinois, the first son of Mormon couple Lester Warfel Brockelhurst Sr. and his wife Edyth (née DuPree). Bernice kept in touch with Brockelhurst through writing as he served his sentence. Her father advocated on his behalf, resulting in his parole on March 7, 1936, just over a year into his sentence. He was paroled into the custody of Felton's father and started working in a nearby department store and print shop. He expressed a desire to take her to Salt Lake City's Mormon Temple to marry Felton there, but he did not have the money to support Felton or make the trip. As a result, on March 31, 1937, the couple embarked on a 18-statewide crime spree, motivated by robbery. Due to his frequent faintings, he had to be sedated by jail physician George E. Lane, who told the press that his behavior was caused by "overexcitement". While incarcerated at his jail cell, Sheriff Paul Johnson of the Rockford Police Department travelled to Poughkeepsie so he could interview Lester about his possible involvement in the murder of gas station operator Herman Luhrsen on February 12, in the small town of Rockton, which was located not far from Rockford. According to Johnson, Luhrsen had been murdered with the same type of gun used by Brockelhurst. Prosecutor Hartje publicly stated that he would demand death sentences for both Brockelhurst and Felton, which prompted Abraham Felton, Bernice's father, to tell the press that his daughter had allegedly been told a sob story from Lester about how his parole officers were "hounding him" until he got married, and so, to get rid of them, he took her so they could get married. During this time, both Lester and Bernice were kept under suicide watch, as both had declared that if one of them took their life, the other would do the same. They were kept in separate cells, but were still allowed to share meals together under the prison guard's supervision. Twenty days before the trial was due to start, Brockelhurst's attorneys notified the Circuit Judge W. J. Waggoner that they would petition the Supreme Court to stop the trial, after their previous request for a 30-day continuance had been denied.

At the end of the trial, Lester Brockelhurst was found guilty of killing Victor Gates and sentenced to die in the electric chair. Upon hearing the verdict, he fainted and had to be carried to his cell while unconscious. His father, who was also present, also collapsed. The following day, Bernice Felton was also put on trial for the murder of Gates.

While spared a murder conviction, Felton faced additional federal charges for transporting the stolen car of one Lester's victim across state lines, from Arkansas to Tennessee. She was found guilty, and after the judge harshly admonished the jury that had acquitted her of murder, he sentenced her to the maximum term allowed for the charge, five years in prison. After her release, she married in 1948 and had a son in Baltimore in 1949; he died at age 16 in an automobile accident. After that marriage ended, she married again and became the mother of eight more children, but that marriage, too, ended in the early 1960s. Bernice herself lived until age 88, dying in 2007. She was buried at Rockford, Illinois.

Over the following months, an appeal was lodged to the Supreme Court for the commutation of Brockelhurst's sentence, but on November 30, it was promptly shot down. Upon hearing of the decision, Lester received the news calmly, saying that nothing he could say would help him. While awaiting his execution at the Tucker Unit, Brockelhurst was interviewed about yet another murder, that of an unidentified man found dead in Poughkeepsie around the time that the pair were seen in the area.

On March 2, 1938, Brockelhurst's attorneys presented a petition, signed by two Little Rock doctors and more than 50 Galesburg residents, which claimed that Lester was mentally ill, and thus, ineligible for execution. Despite their last-ditch attempt, the Jefferson Circuit Court threw out the petition, thus confirming the death verdict for the final time. On March 18, Lester Brockelhurst was electrocuted at the Tucker Unit. Before being strapped to the chair, he gave a 12-minute statement, ending it with a rant about his affair with Bernice. His last words were reportedly the following: