Hi guys! It’s Aniya! Welcome to the third edition of this column for this school year. With the holidays coming around and Thanksgiving break just passed, I wanted to share a less known but still horrifying story that took place on Thanksgiving Day around 30 years ago. 

Before:

Omaima Aree Nelson was born in 1968 in Cairo, Egypt. Although she was one of sixteen children, she was only raised with her two sisters and mother in an impoverished part of the city. Growing up, Nelson faced years of abuse and at the young age of six, she was subject to customary female circumcision at the request of her own father. It is a procedure where the female genitals are forcibly cut; however, it serves no purpose or gain. In many cultures it is used to promote virginity until marriage and is commonly seen in women aged 15 to 49. 

In 1968, Nelson immigrated to the United States through marrying an American citizen named Roger Stainbrook. Soon after, the two divorced but Nelson still retained her citizenship. Nelson mainly lived in Southern California and settled in Costa Mesa working as a student nanny as well as a model. During this time, she engaged in numerous relationships with different men and used different names to attract older men for sexual activity. Her relationships with these men would soon lead to her criminal pathway. 

In 1989, shortly after obtaining her driver’s license, Nelson was noted for the theft of one of her boyfriend’s cars, Jack Hudson, among 12 other traffic violations. The striking bit of this crime though was that it took place in Chino, making it extremely local. Later on in the year, she was charged for the assault of a female security guard in an attempt to shoplift. However, these seemingly violent crimes turned into so much more in the years to come. The following year, Nelson was accused of attempted robbery for pointing a gun at Robert Hannson during their relationship. However, charges were not filed. With another one of her boyfriends, she was said to have put a knife to his throat during their time together. To which she later dismissed as a part of a sex game. 

In 1991, she met William “Bill” Nelson while playing pool at a bar in Huntington Beach. At the time, Nelson was 23 and Bill was 56. He worked as a pilot; however, he was living in Costa Mesa as a computer programmer. Bill was not completely innocent himself as he had just gotten out of prison in an attempt to smuggle 100 tons of marijuana across the border from Mexico. The two immediately hit it off and Bill proposed to her only two days after they had met. They claimed to have married on November 1 that year, but there were no records of their marriage. Even without records, their relationship did not last for long.

After:

On November 28, 1991, Nelson claimed that Bill had sexually assaulted her during a sex game while she was tied to the bed. In retaliation, once she broke free of her restraints, she hit Bill with a lamp before stabbing him with scissors and beating him with a clothes iron. To which he succumbed to his injuries and died that night due to several stab wounds.

After she killed him, she began to dismember his body and cooked his head. She then boiled his hands to remove his fingerprints. As it was Thanksgiving, she jumbled the rest of his body with pieces of turkey and disposed of him through the garbage disposal. She later told her psychiatrist that she had cooked Bill’s ribs and eaten them with barbecue sauce, though she denies this. This dismemberment lasted for 12 hours; however, her psychiatrist says that she was in a trance when this happened and was undergoing a psychotic episode.

In attempts to get rid of the rest of the evidence, Nelson visited some of her older boyfriends in hopes of recruiting them to help. One of them called the police who then searched the Nelsons’ house to which they found much of the furniture stained with blood and human flesh around the rooms. In total, there were eleven containers in the house and a garbage bag in the car with Bill’s body in it. They also recovered the pots used to cook his head and hands. However, some of his body was still unaccounted for, including his genitals.

Shortly after police raided the house, Nelson went to another one of her boyfriend’s houses and told him that Bill had sexually assaulted her and she had marks all over her body to prove it. She asked him to help her dispose of Bill’s body in exchange for $75,000. The man accepted, or at least Nelson thought so, but he instead called the police. When they arrived she claimed that she was set up and had nothing to do with the crime, even denying a fight between the two. 

Nelson was later arrested under suspicion of murder. She was found guilty by a jury of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 27 years in prison. In 2006 and 2011 she attempted to get out on parole but was denied due showing no remorse for her actions. She cannot be eligible for parole again until 2026.

Thank you for your time and I hope you all enjoyed your fall break! Let’s just hope that nothing else was added into your turkey… 

Lerdon, John.  “I Am Not A Monster! Omaima Nelson.” Seriously Mysterious, Apple Podcasts, 15 October 2024, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/seriously-mysterious/id1526484648?i=1000673170420. Accessed 20 November 2024

McPadden, Mike, and Omaima Nelson. “Omaima Nelson: The Model Who Killed, Castrated & Ate Her Husband For Thanksgiving.” Investigation Discovery, https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/murder/omaima-nelson-the-model-who-killed-castrated-ate-her-husband-for-thanksgiving. Accessed 20 November 2024.

“Omaima Nelson.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaima_Nelson. Accessed 20 November 2024.