Andrew Nelson

Andrew Nelson is a serial killer and later a family annihilator who appeared in Train Man in Profiler.

Background
Andrew Nelson was born to Lynn Nelson and an unidentified African-American man out of wedlock when his parents were still in their youth. Lynn's family took Andrew in with high reluctance and prejudice. When her father demanded her to go to college and get her degree so she'd make a higher class life for herself, Andrew was left with his maternal grandparents, but that proved to be consequential since his grandfather repeatedly abused him all his childhood by burning him with cigarettes, his grandmother abstaining from preventing it. Lynn had resented this for as long as it happened and got revenge by poisoning her father's cattle when she was 13. It was originally assumed as a viral strain and even made the papers, but even once the truth was outed, her father dropped the charges, but he still punished her his own way by sending her away. As Andrew grew older, he traveled along the railroads of the southwestern region of the country and of northern Mexico, escaping his family life, including after his mother married named Alan and had two little boys with him, Paulie and David, all carrying their own prejudices, with the boys never knowing about Nelson's family relations to them. Alan was very likely domineering over Lynn, shutting her out even worse from her son and hating her for never mentioning Andrew once they were married. His fury and resentment grew so that he became a serial killer, murdering elderly Caucasian people during his travels as surrogates for his grandparents, afterwards burning the men's faces with cigarettes. He murdered eight people by the time the episode starts.

Train Man
He's first seen strumming a guitar in a moving boxcar, singing a Southern diddy while he sits near his latest victim, known as "Oil Can" Charlie. He them hops off the train at his home town of Ames, Arizona, doing lumber work for a rancher named Lionel Taylor. Taylor gives him twenty bucks for his troubles, assuming he's a "more common" vagrant. Nelson politely refuses the dollar bill, but Taylor insists. Nelson instead tears the bill in halves, and right when Taylor asks "You deranged, boy?", Nelson strangles him to death, Taylor putting up a fight as he's dying. Nelson then hops another train and passes by a group of vagrants in the area. One, "Two-Time" Rudy, is counting his money when Nelson steps on a dropped twenty. Rudy says he needs his savings, but then gets scared and says for Nelson to have it as long as he doesn't hurt him. Nelson sympathetically gives him his dollar bill back, to which Rudy says his thanks and gives his name for if they see each other again. Nelson finally arrives back at his trailer house outside of the Chandlers' property. He peers into the glass door while smoking as the boys are read a bedtime story. In the morning, Alan sees him and scoffs at him for coming back, not having wanted that. David and Paulie, at David's behest, stand on Nelson's trailer and spy on him to pull a prank on and bully him. They do harass him, but at the cost of Paulie falling off and landing on his arm, with David blaming Nelson immediately when he, Lynn, and Alan come rushing out. Alan throws him against his trailer home while cussing him out, demanding he pack up and leave for good. Lynn visits her son later, saying she believes he wasn't responsible, but Nelson is upset she didn't speak for him. She says she doesn't wanna give him up again, that even though she wants him distant from Alan, she doesn't want him to leave. In between Lynn objecting when her parents spoil her kids, her father conceitedly taking about "his sacrifices" while chastising her and Nelson, and Alan slurring Nelson and saying he wants him gone for his own family, Nelson sees his grandfather smoking out on a balcony, with Nelson watching from his trailer's window, feeling the scars on his bare back from when he was regularly burned. When his grandparents and the two younger boys all go out for ice cream, he takes them all hostage, locking the boys in the car in the desert heat and tying the grandparents up in a boxcar while he lights a cigarette. The granddad snarls his rejection and disrespect over how he "raised" Nelson and "took him in", but his grandma scoffs and tells him to stop and admit the truth. She owns up to not stopping the torture Nelson suffered and apologizes, saying hoping it means something to him. He them burns his granddad and strangles them both, killing the patriarch while the matriarch is left alive. Nelson, now caught up to by the FBI, runs and when demanded to give them the car keys, instead runs out of his own fear to get away from them. A lengthy chase leads to the railway roundhouse, where the agents and police have cornered him. They order him to surrender, but he doesn't give in. He raises his arms and falls into the open space of the roundhouse rail, crushing him just as it passes. The kids are likely rescued soon after.

Modus Operandi
Nelson targeted elderly Caucasian people he came across while riding the railroad trains. He murdered them by strangling them with his bare hands, the men's faces he burned with cigarettes postmortem to brand them with the abuse he suffered. His grandparents he abducted, and his grandmother survived. His half-brothers were locked in a hot car in an attempt for them to die from heat stroke.

Known Victims

 * Texas, New Mexico, Arizona (Amarillo, El Paso, Las Cruces, etc.):
 * Five unidentified men and three unidentified women
 * "Oil Can" Charlie (full name unidentified)
 * Ames, AZ: Lionel Taylor, 62 (killed at his ranch instead of the railroad)
 * Mr. Chandler and Joyce Adams (his maternal grandparents; Adams barely survived)
 * Paul and David Chandler (his half-brothers; attempted; locked in a hot car)

Trivia

 * Nelson appears to be based off Angel Maturino Resendiz, aka "The Railway Killer". Resendiz hopped trains throughout the southwestern United States and Mexico, raping and killing people in a transnational spree.