Bellefonte native tied to notorious murder trial pens memoir on overcoming ‘living nightmare’
A Bellefonte native inexorably linked to one of Centre County’s most infamous trials authored a motivational memoir that recounts his rugged upbringing and how he learned to cope.
Nelson Tressler’s 232-page book, “The Unlucky Sperm Club: You Are Not a Victim of Your Circumstances but a Product of Your Choices,” was published in November explores his childhood marred by murder, rape allegations and poverty.
“It doesn’t have to be a bad thing; we get to give that a meaning. It’s about being able to overcome the trials no matter what they are, no matter how severe they seem,” Tressler said. “I want people to read this story and have hope no matter what situation they find themselves in, and I want to inspire them to take action. I want them to read my story and say, ‘If he can do it in that situation, then maybe I can do it.’ ”
Borough police officer Ronald Seymore — one of five police officers to die in Centre County while either on duty or investigating off duty — was fatally shot October 1971 by John Tressler, Nelson’s grandfather. The motive for the shooting is inexact.
One suggestion is the elder Tressler was irate after police informed him of a landfill permit dispute. That rationale was muddied when Diane Burns, Nelson’s mother and John’s daughter, testified Seymore raped and impregnated her when she was 15.
Seymore was never charged or formally accused of sexual misconduct. Burns declined to be interviewed.
John Tressler was convicted in June 1972 and was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2000. The situation was a “living nightmare” during his childhood, Nelson Tressler said.
“I had a lot of what’s in this book bottled up inside of me my entire life and kind of ran from it, wanted to keep it hid and never wanted to deal with those circumstances because every time it came up it inflicted pain,” Tressler said. “It was therapeutic whenever I started to write down the stories and helped me to take ownership of it. I realized that it wasn’t something that I had to hide away from. These things in the book used to weaken me and take away my strength, but now they give me strength.”
Tressler said he grew up feeling like “damaged goods” and actively concealed his last name from others. That led him to “run away” from Centre County when he was about 20, first to Saint Francis University, then the Air Force and then UNLV.
The 48-year-old now lives in Las Vegas. The anonymity that came with leaving his hometown was freeing, Tressler said, and let him become “Nelson Nobody.”
“Nobody knew my past, nobody knew all the things that surrounded me and I was able to become whoever I wanted to become,” Tressler said. “That’s when I got unshackled from all that stuff that was weighing me down.”
Tressler does not know his biological father. He subsequently had few mentors or role models growing up, an experience he and his wife, Skye, did not want to pass down to their three sons — Dawson, Branson and Grayson.
“I’m in that stage of my life now where I’m on the back side of this, and now I want other people to realize that — if they’re willing to change their lives — we always have a choice,” Tressler said. “If they see that somebody else has done it, maybe that gives them hope and faith that they can do it as well.”