Raymond Nels Nelson

Raymond Nels Nelson (September 2, 1921 – June 1, 1981) was bureau chief of The Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin and later a member of the staff of Senator Claiborne Pell.

Commenting on the folly of staking his career on an unknown candidate, Nelson said: "There is absolutely nothing like being right when everybody thinks you're wrong," and called the campaign "the most fun I ever had."

In a 1971 interview in the Sunday Journal, Nelson prided himself on Pell's Senate office's open door policy and college intern program, at the time the largest and most active on the Hill.

(Page 156, An Uncommon Man) In 1974 Nelson abruptly left Pell's office and joined the staff of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration.

Nelson was found murdered amid scattered newspapers and magazines in his apartment near Catholic University in Washington D.C. at 701 Quincy Street, NE, on June 1, 1981.

"[3] In a Washington Post article the day after the murder, Pell also said "Ray Nelson was a dear and old friend of my wife and me, as well as an associate who worked with me for many years.

"[2] Before police sealed Nelson's apartment and office, a Senate staff member was allowed entry to remove 'sensitive' documents, thereby compromising evidence.

[citation needed] In November 1981, Wilmot Robertson wrote that Washington police had "clamped a lid of total secrecy" over the murder.