Trying this again lol….. Here’s an art and lore dump of my Prime Asset oc Leslie Erlingson
He’s an ex ice-harvesting foreman and pimp from Minnesota…,,.,,….. in my head he’d be released alongside a Winter Kills event but that’s just me being a nerd idk..,,,,
Pls ask questions abt him if you have some!!!
Lore below!!!
!!!TW: child abuse, sex & substance trafficking, toxic masochism, & serial killing!!!
Leslie Erlingson was born on June 11th 1934 to William Erlingson, an ice harvester, and Alexandra Erlingson, a barmaid, living in a low-income household in the port city of Duluth, Minnesota. Alexandra Erlingson suffered from PPD (Postpartum Depression) and PPP (Postpartum Psychosis) due to her already poor mental health and the belief that her and her husband were not capable of either raising or providing for a child, and it grew both untreated and uncared for by her husband to a point where she tried to drown Leslie in Lake Superior "to put him out of his misery". Luckily, infant Leslie was saved in time, but struggled with a weak immune system ever since. After the incident, Alexandra was confined to a women's mental health ward for 8 months, and was committed to electroconvulsive therapy throughout her time staying there. Her relationship with William started to crumble once she returned home, which in turn increased her resentment towards Leslie.
From the age of 5 and beyond, William would take Leslie with him to work—William's argument to do so was that he didn't trust Alexandra to be alone around Leslie at home while he was away. William and his coworkers would travel down to Lake St. Croix and get their harvest, then go further down to Minneapolis to sell half their batch, then go up again to Duluth to ship out the rest across Lake Superior—the shift would take at the least an entire day, sometimes even stretching into the night, and Leslie was forced to endure the entire shift.
On December 4th, 1941, 7 year old Leslie was forgotten at Lake St. Croix, and William only realised on his way back from Minneapolis that he was missing his son.
It took a whole 3 hours before they found Leslie once more, and another hour before they found treatment for him. Leslie had contracted deep frostbite on both hands, feet, and especially his head, not including the fact it had crept up further on his legs and arms which led to big blisters and later scarring when treated. The frostbite ate through the entirety of his nose, the skin and tissue of his right cheek— exposing his teeth and gums, his left ear, and nearly all toes on his right foot due to losing his shoe at the lake (his left foot and hands were spared, but remained fairly mangled)—everything being either amputated or cut out. Leslie developed Chronic Compartment Syndrome from the frostbite, which meant nearly any physical activity like running or playing was strenuous/painful. He also got diagnosed with secondary Raynaud’s Syndrome.
Alexandra flew into a rage, appropriately blaming William for the tragedy. She was angry at both the physical harm of their child and the unfairness that she herself had been treated with back when she’d nearly drowned Leslie, and that William was taking little to no responsibility for it nor any punishment for what had happened. They argued for several days, with a sickly Leslie being witness to it all.
William was stubborn and defensive, refusing to listen to any of Alexandra's arguments until she completely gave up. After that, Alexandra resented both her husband and son, and would only do the slightest of parental duties, even if it aggravated William—which would in turn prompt Alexandra to take her anger out on Leslie. Being physically abused by his mother, added on by his parents' both emotional and physical neglect, Leslie would perceive the beatings as love and would later grow up to become a violent masochist. This point in time is where Leslie would recall he had frequent bed-wetting episodes and night terrors, which he was also beat for. He also developed a stutter around this time, and without proper treatment, therapy, and with further isolation, would only make it worse and last into his adulthood.
Leslie was confined to homeschool after the incident, since doctors presumed he would be too disturbing for other students to treat him fairly at a normal school, and prosthetics could only be made once he was fully matured physically. This further isolated him from the world, and would make him very nervous to join society and converse with other people to a point where he’d act erratically and be nearly incoherent when in social situations.
Once Leslie was finished growing at 16, he was given personalized porcelain prosthetics, and was finally allowed to join a public high school and start working with his father on weekends once more. Nearly immediately Leslie was roped into the wrong crowd at school, he liked the easiness of being accepted into a group and not having to worry about what to say, what he looked like or how to act. Many of the kids he hung out with were involved in drugs, alcohol and violence, and one of the kids' father was involved in Minnesota 13 and sex trafficking.
Being a timid, smart, and strange yet well-behaved kid, Leslie was perfect to use as a mule—because nobody expected him to do anything bad. Leslie’s friends would convince him to take them along on his father’s ice harvesting trips, posing to help with labour while simultaneously heading into nearby towns on their free time to sell the moonshine.
As he grew older, Leslie grew more charismatic and confident, and he also showed to be incredibly smart and graduated with honours—which he never used for anything. He also won homecoming king in 1952. Right after high school he took up his father’s ice harvesting business, and he was quickly promoted to a foreman position. Leslie had overcome his Chronic Compartment Syndrome, treating pain like pleasure. Despite exceeding at his job, Leslie kept up the illegal trafficking on the side—greedy for wealth he’d never had as a child.
Leslie’s masochism had become more evident and it wasn’t just about love anymore, he was quickly turning into a sexual deviant—while his alternative line of work also became more evident. Soon it was obvious to his parents what he was up to, and him still being a very fragile, dependent and living at home, they tried to beat sense into him. During the beating, Leslie had an erection and his parents were disgusted. This only angered Leslie, thinking that his parents didn’t love him anymore since they now refused to continue the physical abuse, and he murdered them both by asphyxiation.
In the years to come, Leslie started to spiral. He became very irrational and hard to persuade, and his perversions grew more extreme. He became a regular with the prostitutes him and the other traffickers pimped out, and he would let the older men at his work do nearly anything they wanted to him if they asked. Despite this, he became extremely aggressive when men his age showed any interest in him, and often became cruel and mean after staying with women.
Being hostile soon evolved into being violent, and nearly anyone who was close to Leslie, or tried themselves on him either ended up missing or badly beat. Just like what he did with his parents, Leslie would get rid of the bodies hiding them out at various lakes, and would return just before the water would freeze in the winter to throw the bodies in, by that point the bodies would float easily and he’d come back to cut out ice blocks where they had frozen—and then dispose of them through a wood chipper. But before Leslie would throw the bodies in, he’d always retrieve their belts as trophies.
Leslie would also always perform these tasks, sexual acts and his murders wearing a gimp mask, which not only served as a good disguise but also fed into his fetish. Soon Duluth was on the hunt for whoever had made all these people go missing, and Leslie stayed undetected for a long while. Though, soon a rat in his circle spoke up, and he became a suspect. Leslie would quickly try to shake the suspicion off of him, and offered to help the police with their investigation—purposefully misleading them to wrong coordinations where he knew they’d find nothing. The community had a lot of trust in Leslie when it came to knowing the local geography, and it was acknowledged that Leslie was an incredibly smart man, and so he stayed free.
The hunt for Leslie soon had Murkoff’s interest, as Leslie by 1959 had over 20 suspected murders. Leslie was finally found, not by Clyde Perry or any other government agent, but by a lone officer scoping lake St. Croix on December 24th after receiving an anonymous tip, discovering Leslie destroying one of his frozen bodies—proceeding to shoot Leslie two times in the legs and one time in the side once he tried to run, where Leslie was then consulted by Officer Clyde Perry in the hospital while receiving care.
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