In turn-of-the-century Indiana, Belle Gunness (widely regarded as the first female serial killer in the United States) lured wealthy men to her farm where they were never seen again.
Belle Gunness was born Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth in the small fishing village of Selbu in Norway on November 11 1859. Her parents ran a farm, but moonlighted as circus performers, and Brynhild would sometimes appear alongside them as a tightrope walker. We don’t know much else about her early life but we do know that she was the youngest of eight children, and one of her elder sisters, Anna, had moved to Chicago some time in the 1870s.
One story we do know about her though is that in 1877 she was pregnant and attending a barndance, and a man who was also at the dance kicked her so hard in the stomach that she miscarried the baby. But because he was from a rich, upstanding local family, he was never charged, but a few months after the miscarriage, this man died from “stomach” problems, and it is believed that he may have been her first victim.
In 1881 Brynhild joined her sister in Chicago, she anglicised her name and went by Belle or Bella Paulsdatter, and settled into the already established Scandinavian community in Chicago.
In 1884 Belle married Mads Sorenson, a fellow Scandinavian migrant, and together the couple lived a fairly happy life. They went on to have four children: Axel, Caroline, Myrtle, and Lucy, and then they fostered and eventually adopted a fifth child named Jennie. Axel and Caroline both died for acute colitis around their second birthdays.
The couple also ran a sweet shop. The only real drama during their marriage were the fires that seemed to hit their homes and business. Twice their family home burned down, and in 1897 their sweet shop was burned to the ground. Thankfully, in each instance the couple were very well insured and soon managed to rebuild their lives.
All was well in the Sorenson house until 1900 when Mads Sorenson suddenly died. Belle claimed that he had been suffering from a headache and so she had given him something from the pain, but then when she checked on him later on, he was dead. Two autopsies were carried out on Mads Sorenson, the first said he had been poisoned by the second overruled that and said he had died of a heart attack. The second autopsy had been conducted by the family’s doctor who had previously treated Mads for heart problems.
But regardless of what caused Mads Sorenson’s death, Belle and the children were well taken care of.
You see Mads had taken out life insurance on himself but the policy was about to lapse and he had taken out a different policy, but there was one day where these two policies overlapped. June 30th 1900 – the one day on which Belle would have been able to claim on both policies, and would you believe it, as luck would have it Mads Sorenson died on the day that these two policies overlapped. Belle claimed a total of $5,000 from the two policies. Today that would be $154,713.10 or £120,449.56.
But despite Mads’s cause of death being recorded as heart failure, all accounts agree that he showed signs and symptoms that were similar to our old favourite Strychnine poisoning. Which was the original, overturned, finding. And while we’re hovering around the subject, the symptoms of acute colitis in small children is also the same as Strychnine poisoning.
Shortly after collecting the life insurance money, Belle decided to leave Chicago behind and begin a new life in the town of La Porte in rural Indiana. In 1901 Belle bought a farm in La Porte which was another area which had been popular with Scandinavian migrants. The farm was a six bedroom building and was also a former brothel.
Just before her move to La Porte, Belle met her second husband Peter Gunness in Chicago, and he moved to La Porte with her. The couple were married sometime in 1901, but the union would only last for eight months before it would come to an abrupt end with Peter Gunness’s death in early 1902.
One day Peter was in the kitchen and reaching for something on a shelf when he lost his balance and everything came crashing down upon him, including their meat grinder which just happened to cave in his skull. Peter’s death was recorded as a tragic accident, however, many commented that the injury perfectly matched that of a hammer blow.
This wasn’t even the first fatality for the Gunness household. Peter Gunness was a widower, and brought two daughters with him into the blended household, but one of those daughters died under suspicious circumstances. As a result of this he sent his eldest daughter Swanhilde to live with relatives elsewhere, this was probably the best decision Peter Gunness made.
The local coroner also noticed signs of poisoning and ordered a full inquest into Peter’s death, but no evidence could be found and so the original recording of a tragic accident was upheld. Throughout the inquest Belle played the grieving widow complete with crocodile tears, but at the same time her foster daughter Jennie was telling her school friends that her mother had killed her step-father by hitting him in the head with a meat cleaver, but nobody seemed to pay attention to this.
Once again, Belle and the children were in luck, because there was a life insurance policy on Peter Gunness’s life which totalled $4,000 – today that would be $122,314.35 or £95,219.28 today.
Less than six months after Peter Gunness’s death Belle gave birth to a son who she named Philip Gunness. She would never marry again. Various farm hands moved in with the family to help her run the farm but after a few years alone Belle decided she wanted a companion again, preferable one with a lot of money.
Because, despite having earned $9,000 from her husbands and their deaths – more than quarter of a million dollars today, that wasn’t enough for Belle, and in 1905 she figured out a much more efficient way to earn money: Lonely Hearts columns.
So Belle began placing adverts in magazines and newspapers which catered the Scandinavian community in the USA. One of these ads read:
“Comely widow who owns a large farm in one of the finest districts in La Porte County, Indiana, desires to make the acquaintance of gentleman equally well provided, with view to joining fortunes. No replies by letter considered unless sender is willing to follow answer with personal visit. Triflers need not apply.”
Another ad read:
“Wanted: A woman who owns a beautifully and valuable located farm in first class condition, wants a good and reliable man as partner in the same. Some little cash is required for which will be furnished first class security.”
Whilst she was waiting for a suitable man to reply to her lonely hearts ads and move to the farm, Belle had a quite large turnover of farm hands. Most worked there for a few months then suddenly disappeared, Belle would tell neighbours and friends that they had either left for another job, moved along, which worked well for Bell because a lot of farm workers were transients who tended to come and go.
In interviews, her postman said that she received 8-10 letters a day from potential suitors.
And for the next five years following Peter’s death the farmhouse may as well have had a revolving door, with rich men constantly coming to the farmhouse. But most of these men were never seen again, according to Belle they would leave in the middle of the night, and she would cry to her neighbours every time one of these men left her. They all thought she just had really bad luck with men.
Around this time Belle’s adopted daughter Jennie also disappeared, but Belle simply told everyone that she had sent her to a finishing school in California. But, there were reports that one of the many farmhands who worked on the farm, the son of a neighbour named Emile, was in love with Jennie and then suddenly Jennie was gone.
While she continued on her quest for a rich husband, in 1907 one of the farmhands, Ray Lamphere, moved into the farmhouse and worked the land, and Belle took quite a shine to him, and the two were described as on-again, off-again lovers. Ray was 37 years old and had quite a bad reputation for drinking, gambling and womanising. He was also known to be pretty lazy and useless. Belle soon realised that he had no money or financial prospects, and instead invited one of the men who replied to her newspaper ads to live with her. Ray always resented the men that Belle brought into the house and to certain extent Belle as well.
Later that year Belle finally found a suitable potential suitor Andrew Helgelian, a Swedish migrant who had settled in South Dakota. Belle would always tell her potential husbands to liquidate their assets, bring all the money with them, and not tell anyone where they were going. Not suspicious at all. But despite these red flags, Andrew happily travelled from South Dakota to Indiana, bringing with him all of his money.
Ray Laphere was asked to move out of the farmhouse in the weeks before Belle and Andrew’s wedding was due to take place, but then, suddenly, after handing more than $2000 over to Belle, Andrew Helgelian disappeared.
Belle then asked Ray to move back in again! Ray was like fuck no! But he did actually start hanging around the farm, making a general nuisance of himself. So Belle had to hire a new farmhand, Joe Maxson, and Joe was a bit of a snitch and told Belle every time he saw Ray, not just around the farm, but also when he saw him about town, or heard anything about him.
Ray had been heard in the bars around La Porte making threats about Belle and he was eventually arrested for harassment, and at one point Belle tried to have him declared insane, but this was not successful. Following this incident, Belle visited a local attorney and made out her will, she told the attorney that Ray was out to get her and that she feared one night he would burn her house down.
And just when you think poor old Belle couldn’t suffer any more bad luck, on April 28 1908, just a couple of days after Belle made her will, the Gunness farmhouse went up in flames. New farmhand Joe Maxson woke around dawn to smoke filling his room. He ran across the hallway to try and wake Belle Gunness and the two children who still lived there, Myrtle and Lucy, but he found Belle’s door was locked and he couldn’t break it down. As the building began to go up in flames, Joe Maxson jumped from the first floor window. He was the only survivor of the fire.
When the ash began to cool investigators found the bodies of three children, believed to be Myrtle, Lucy and Philip, and an adult who everyone believed was Belle. The local community mourned Belle and her family, and fingers were quickly pointed at Ray Lamphere.
Ray was soon arrested for arson, he eventually confessed but claimed that Belle had paid him to set the fire so that she could fake her own death and escape, because you see, something else happened just before the fire.
When Andrew Helgelian disappeared his brother Asle began to worry about him, because Andrew told his brother he would return within a week or two. He began to look through Andrew’s home for signs of where he had gone and found numerous letters from a Belle Gunness in La Porte, Indiana, telling Andrew that she thought he was the man for her and to bring all of his money or deposit certificates, and crucially not to tell anyone where he was going or who he was going to visit.
So in March 1908, almost three months after he had last seen his brother, Asle travelled to La Porte, Indiana to try and track down his brother and Belle Gunness.
We’ll circle back to Asle in a minute, but first we need to talk about the bodies found in the remnants of the farmhouse.
There were two young women and it was widely accepted that these were the bodies of Myrtle and Lucy, Belle’s daughters, and her son Philip, but the final body was widely disputed. At first it was just assumed that it was Belle, but the woman had been decapitated which made identification a bit more difficult.
The body was also much, much smaller than Belle. Belle was a big lass. She was reportedly 6 feet tall and weighed 20 stone, but the body found in the fire was that of a much smaller woman. Some people say that because of the fire her body could have shrunk, but she couldn’t have gotten shorter because of the fire.
Back to Asle. One week after the fire at the Gunness homestead, Asle walked into the La Porte sheriff’s office in the hopes of finding information on his brother’s wearabouts. Nobody had any idea where Andrew Helgelian had gone, but police and local volunteers were still searching through the remains of the farmhouse. So, fearing the worst, Asle went to Gunness property, to help with the search. The main point of the search was actually to find the missing head of the adult female found in the ashes, because after a week there was still no head, and without it the coroner couldn’t make a positive identification ruling.
The sheriff at one point asked Joe Maxson if there were any pits or holes that had recently been filled in on the property, and Joe pointed them towards a pit in the pig pen which had been filled in just days before the fire. Joe claimed that Belle used it almost like a compost heap/rubbish dump, throwing out rotten fruit and veg, coffee grounds and broken crockery. Upon further inspection, they discovered there were quite a number of depressions in the land which looked as though they could have been dug out fairly recently.
Officers and volunteers began digging through the pit and after getting through the rotten food and broken china, they are hit with the foul smell of decomposing bodies. Now this search was still only focused on finding the missing head, not looking for other victims.
One the first day they found parts of five bodies, and on the second day they found body parts belonging to a further six victims. Quick lime had been scattered over the bodies to try and speed up decomposition.
Belle’s most recent victim Andrew Helgelian was found, as was Belle’s adopted daughter Jennie.
There are two schools of thought as to why Belle murdered Jennie. Remember when we said that the neighbour’s son who worked on the Gunness farm was quite taken with Jennie, well there are some who believe that Belle may have killed Jennie out of spite because she was used to all the farmhands, and men in general, falling at her feet and was jealous that this particular farmhand was more interested in her teenage daughter than her. However, the most popular theory is that Jennie had suspicions about what her mother was up to, and she reportedly had begun asking her mother questions about why all these men suddenly leave in the night and why there was a big hole in the pig pen. And so, Belle had killed Jennie to silence her.
Most of the bodies were never identified. But examinations of the bodies showed that they all had signs of trauma and concluded that most of them had suffered blunt force trauma to the head.
The story became a media frenzy and people flocked to La Porte from all over the country to get a look at the remains of the murder house and the death garden. 20,000 people travelled there one weekend and the place became such an attraction that vendors pitched up along the road by the farm selling ice creams, popcorn, cake, and “Gunness Stew”. Trains were overcrowded and the people of La Porte just couldn’t go about their lives because of all the tourists.
People also began buying mementos of the trip, in the form of items that survived the fire that were auctioned off.
But still, nobody could find this missing head.
The local doctor couldn’t confirm whether or not the body was Belle, but her dentist said that if her false teeth were found in the rubble he would be able to identify them as he made them. So two weeks after the fire the sheriff sent prospectors into the rubble to find Belle’s gold teeth, and as luck would have it, a set of dentures were found in the ashes and rubble. These false teeth were remarkably intact for having been in a massive house fire, and the local dentist confirmed that they were a set he had made for Belle.
So with this, the coroner finally declared Belle Gunness dead and Ray Lamphere was indicted for the murder of Belle and her children, and the murders of all of the bodies found buried around the property.
Because this case was such a huge national frenzy, people became really divided over whether or not they thought Ray did it or Belle did it, and it was split very much along party lines too. Thanks to newspapers with very clear party affiliations, Republicans claimed Belle was dead and Ray was responsible and must be put to death so the people of Indiana felt justice had been served, but Democrats claimed she was alive and that Ray was innocent and nobody should be sentenced to death just for the illusion of justice having been served – it should be the right person sentenced!
And while this argument is going on, people from all over the country were writing to officials in La Porte because they feared their missing loved ones may have been murdered and buried on the farm.
Prosecutors were in a bit of a tricky situation because they had to admit that Belle was involved in the murders or as they put it “engaged in the wholesale slaughter of humanity.”, but they also had to argue that she had been murdered, and there was very little sympathy for Belle in Indiana. They also had to admit that Belle had done everything she could in the weeks leading up to the fire to discredit Ray and portray him as insane.
Investigators in Indiana had also discovered that Mads Sorenson, Belle’s first husband had died on the one day two life insurance policies overlapped, and that the first autopsy concluded Strychnine poisoning. It was becoming a very difficult line to walk: Belle was a serial killer, a fraudster and a liar, but in this particular instance she was murdered and her body miraculously shrunk in the fire.
Despite all of this Ray Lamphere’s show trial went ahead, he maintained his innocence but was eventually found guilty of starting the fire. A chemist spoke on his behalf at the trial claiming to have found traces of strychnine in the bodies of the three Gunness children, although that was not what killed them, and this cast doubt on his guilt in terms of murder.
He was acquitted of murder but sentenced to 21 years for arson.
Ray Lamphere died a year later in prison after contracting tuberculosis. He supposedly confessed to the prison chaplain before his death that he witnessed Andrew Helgelien’s death and demanded hush money from Belle, but instead she fired him and with Asle Helgelien trying to find his brother she knew the game was up. So she framed Ray and escaped. He also said there were rumours that Belle had hired a housekeeper in the days before the fire and that was who the body in the fire belonged to.
Sightings of Belle continued to be reported for the next 20 years, many of them in the Chicago area, but she was also seen in upstate New York and even in the woods outside La Porte. Most of these sightings were investigated by police at the time but none of them ever led to anything. These sightings ended, or at least stopped being reported, in 1930 so it is presumed that if she did escape she died sometime in 1930 when she would have been aged 70-71.
We still don’t know the full extent of Belle Gunness’s killings, estimates range from 20-40 people including all six of her children, both of her husbands, one of her step-daughters, and Andrew Helgelien.
Four men who disappeared after travelling to Indiana to marry a rich widow: Olaf Jensen, Bert Chase, T.J. Tiefland and Charles Neiburg, plus the others found buried on the farm who were never identified or recorded.
The headless woman presumed to be Belle was buried in a cemetery in Chicago next to the body of Mads Sorenson.
In 2007 with the permission of Belle’s sister’s descendants the body of the woman was exhumed with the intention of collecting a DNA sample to compare to Belle’s relatives, but unfortunately in the 99 years since the woman was buried the body had decayed too much for a viable sample to be collected and the results were inconclusive.
Belle’s schemes and scams had netted her the equivalent of more than $1 million in today’s money, and following her death her sister Nellie Larson told the Chicago Examiner “My sister was insane on the subject of money”…“She never seemed to care for a man for his own self, only for the money or luxury he was able to give her.”
And that is the story of Belle Gunness, Lady Blackbeard, Hell’s Belle and the Black Widow.