In most instances, it takes charm and charisma to con someone out of their hard-earned money. But for Belle Gunness, all it took was a newspaper, and some devious thought patterns.
Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth was born on November 11th, 1859, in Selbu, Norway. She was the youngest of eight children, born to a family of farmhands who worked for a more affluent family. Brynhild grew up farming, and knew very well how to run a successful, steady farm. She was also very accustomed to tough physical labour from a very young age.
By the age of fourteen, Brynhild began saving in order to earn enough to gain passage to New York. She dreamed of the American Dream, and wanted her piece of the apple pie. In 1881, she used what savings she had, and begged her brother-in-law for the rest, in order to make her way to the United States.
As she passed through the immigration process, she changed her name from Brynhild to Belle, wanting a more American sounding name for her new American life. Making it through Castle Garden, she travelled on to Chicago where she joined her sister, Nellie, who had immigrated to the United States a few years prior. While Belle was with her sister and brother-in-law, she earned her keep first as a domestic servant, then in a butcher’s shop, picking up skills that would be useful to her throughout her life.
In 1884, Belle was running some errands whens he entered a department store. There, she met Mads Sorenson, a fellow Norwegian immigrant. Belle was charmed by the man, and found him incredibly handsome. It was love at first site. Soon, the couple began courting, and were married in 1884, the year they met.
Belle was desperate to have children, but the couple found they had trouble conceiving. Instead, Mads suggest that they adopt. Agreeing to this, Belle and Mads fostered two children, whom Mads absolutely adored.
The couple were living their dream. They had a modest home, and also owned their own business – a candy store. In quick succession, both the store and their home burned down. Belle was very quick to collect the insurance payouts for both incidents. Despite friends and neighbours gossiping about the coincidence of the incidents, the Sorensons went about their own business. Until tragedy struck.
In 1886, and then 1888, two of the Sorensons foster children died from inflammation of the large intestine. Officially, the cause of the deaths was listed as colitis, which was a diagnosis that wasn’t much thought about. It wasn’t until years later that the thought that the children may have been poisoned even crossed anyone’s mind.
Despite the tragedy, Belle was covered. She’d insured the children’s lives, and was able to collect insurance payouts following both deaths. Following the tragedy, the Sorensons adopted three more children, all girls – Myrtle, Lucy, and Jennie. And Belle wasn’t taking any risks.
Feeling pressured by his wife, as well as by the tragedy of losing his children, Mads purchased two life insurance policies for himself, naming his wife as the beneficiary. On July 30th, 1890, the policies overlapped each other. It was the only day that both policies would be active at the exact same time.
That same day, Mads Sorenson died of a cerebral hemorrhage. When Belle called for the doctor, she explained that Mads had complained of a headache upon returning home. Tending to her husband, she gave him quinine powder to manage the pain. When she checked on him a little while later, she found him dead.
No one contradicted this story. Belle collected the life insurance from both policies, totalling $8,000. Using the money, Belle packed up her children, and moved to La Porte, Indiana. There, she bought a pig farm, and what she felt like was a fresh start.
On April 1st, 1902, Belle married Peter Gunness, also a Norwegian immigrant. Peter’s wife had passed away, and he found if difficult to raise his young children on his own. Marrying Belle, a sturdy, good looking woman of means who owned her own property, would offer his children a mother’s tender loving care. Peter thought this was a dream come true.
A week after the wedding, while Peter was away from the home, his infant daughter passed away in Belle’s care. No official cause of death was noted, and no real suspicions arose from the death of the child.
Shortly thereafter, Belle discovered that was pregnant. Following the news, the Gunness marriage soured. Belle began to see her husband in a very different light, especially after the birth of their son.
Belle planned it all very, very carefully, thinking it through, and weighing the pros and cons. A few months after they said their vows, on a cold December night in 1902, Belle prepared dinner for her family, and also prepared a special drink for Peter. She put the drink off to the side, and fed her family.
When the children were safely tucked up in bed, Belle handed Peter the drink, and watched as the strychnine slowly took hold of him. When Peter fell unconscious, she took up a meat cleaver, and smashed it into his skull, killing him. Then, she staged the scene. Belle placed Peter on the kitchen floor, and made it appear as though his head had been crushed by a falling meat grinder, which had been on a high shelf. Satisfied, Belle called for the doctor.
The coroner found the death highly suspicious, and called for a coroner’s jury in order to perform an investigation. The jury found nothing suspicious about Peter’s death, and, despite some gossip and lingering concern surround Belle, the matter was dropped. Belle then collected on Peter’s life insurance policy, earning $3,000 for her dead husband’s life.
Belle’s jig was nearly up when her foster daughter, Jennie, allegedly told her schoolmates that her “mama killed my papa”. She told them: “She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died. Don’t tell a soul.” As Jennie was preparing for college at the time, Belle took advantage of the opportunity. She told Jennie’s friends that she’d decided to go to college in California. No one ever heard from Jennie again.
For a few years, Gunness went about her business, tending to her farm, often hiring farmhands to help her with the chores around the property. It also helped that the farmhands paid her a lot of attention. Attention that she relished in.
Soon, tongues began wagging around La Porte for a whole different reason – Gunness was going through farmhands so fast, there were few in the community left who hadn’t worked on her farm, or worked her over behind closed doors.
But this attention wasn’t enough. Tending the farm required finances. And Gunness needed financial security. She began placing marriage ads in Norwegian language newspapers in 1905. The ads read: “Personal — comely widow who owns a large farm in one of the finest districts in La Porte County, Indiana, desires to make the acquaintance of a gentleman equally well provided, with view of joining fortunes. No replies by letter considered unless sender is willing to follow answer with personal visit. Triflers need not apply.”
Between 1905 and 1907, dozens of men replied to her ads. One such suitor was Henry Gurholt, who travelled ot La Porte from Wisconsin. Upon his arrival on the Gunness farm, Henry wrote to his family that he was in good health, but requesting they send seed potatoes for the farm. Henry was never heard from again.
His family contacted Gunness – though the two had never married, they knew that Henry had intended on it, and had provided his finances to Gunness in order to secure the marriage. She informed the Gurholts that Henry had left her to go to Chicago with horse traders. But that hadn’t stopped her from keeping his trunk, and his fur overcoat.
In 1906, John Moe, of Minnesota, corresponded with Gunness for several months before he packed up, withdrew a large sum of money, and travelled to La Porte, Indiana. John was never heard from again, though, again, Gunness had kept his trunk. She seemed to keep a lot of trunks.
And so the pattern continued, with Olaf Svenherud, Ole B. Budsburg, and Olaf Lindbloom, to name a few.
George Anderson had also answered Gunness’s ad. He arrived in La Porte from Missouri, hoping for love, and a steady farm to tend. That is not what he found.
One night, while he was sleeping – in a separate bedroom from Gunness – George woke to her looming over him in his sleep. He was startled, and noted that her eyes appeared ravenous, and cold. Frightened, George packed what he could, and left the farm that night. He was the only male suitor to survive the conniving clutches of Belle Gunness.
With her options for suitors running low, Gunness hired Ray Lamphere as her new farmhand in 1907. The man was known around the community for being unsavoury – lending himself to drink and gambling. But Gunness saw potential in him, and he worked diligently for her.
Lamphere grew very fond of Gunness very quickly. He felt lucky to be given a room in her home on the second floor, and even luckier when Gunness would share his bed. Gunness enjoyed his attention, but still sought out other suitors. When these men would come and go, Lamphere expressed severe jealousy, and often possessiveness over Gunness. He hated when her attention was on the men she was conning, rather than on himself.
After an intense argument over his jealousy in 1908, Gunness fired Lamphere, and kicked him off the property. Gunness hired another farm hand immediately, Joe Maxson. While he was competent, and more than willing to work hard, Gunness was disgruntled. Joe didn’t seem to care about her at all. But that was fine – Gunness had her hands full with her jilted lover.
After being terminated from his position, Lamphere, according to sources, became ‘an endless source of grief’ for his prior employer. Gunness was troubled that Lamphere was prowling around her property, peeking in windows, and trying to get her attention. She wrote to the sheriff, Albert Smutzer, repeatedly about Lamphere’s behaviour.
When it seemed that Lamphere’s behaviour would not stop, she tried to have him declared ‘insane’. When this tactic failed, she had him arrested in March of 1908. He was fined for trespassing.
A few days later, Lamphere was arrested again, though released more or less immediately. By this time, the community was on the lookout for Lamphere, and were aware of his fixation on the widowed Belle Gunness.
On April 27th, 1908, Belle Gunness visited her attorney, Melvin E. Leliter. To him, Gunness appeared anxious, maybe nervous. He couldn’t blame her, what with the Lamphere business occurring around her. When she asked him to help her draw up a will, he didn’t think anything of it – his client was protecting herself, just in case. Melvin was more than happy to assist Gunness in any way that he could.
Following the meeting, Gunness did a spot of shopping. She wandered around town, bought some cakes, and a toy train for her young son. She also bought two gallons of kerosene.
The following morning, the Gunness farm burned to the ground. Ray Lamphere was immediately arrested for arson.
As investigators were looking around the scene, they found four bodies. Three were Belle Gunness’s children, and the fourth was the body of a headless woman. Everyone assumed the body belonged to Belle Gunness herself, murdered alongside her three children – two daughters and a son.
However, when further investigation of the property uncovered, at least, eleven additional bodies, investigators began to ask questions that they hadn’t considered before.
As they were investigating the scene, and re-framing who the widow actually was in their minds, La Porte police authorities were contacted by Asle Helgelien.
Asle had found correspondence between his brother, Andrew, and Belle Gunness back home in South Dakota. The letters from Gunness urged Andrew to move to La Porte, secretly, and to bring with him a large sum of money. When the family never heard from Andrew again, they grew concerned. And Gunness was less than forthcoming as to his whereabouts.
When they heard about the discovery, Asle made haste to La Porte. He needed to see the scene for himself. When he arrived, aided to the location with one of Gunness’s fired farmhands, they noticed ‘soft depressions’ around the pig pens. When investigators dug into these depressions, they uncovered a bag. The bag contained ‘two hands, two feet, and one head’. Asle identified the body parts as those of his brother, Andrew.
Dozens of these depressions were further discovered, and more body parts were uncovered. All of the body parts appeared to have been expertly butchered. Each body had been decapitated, arms removed at the shoulders, and legs removed at the knees. They were then placed in burlap sacks, and buried near the pig pens.
The more investigators dug, the more they found. At one point, they ‘stopped counting’ how many bodies had been buried on the Gunness property. They were especially heartbroken, though not surprised, when they positively identified the body of Gunness’s foster daughter, Jennie.
News media latched onto the story – it became a national sensation. Newspapers labelled Belle Gunness by many different names – “Black Widow”, “Hell’s Belle,” “Indiana Ogress”. And “Misstress of the Castle of Death”.
The coverage prompted the families of men who had corresponded with Gunness to try to have their missing loved ones identified. Identification was not possible in most cases. As many as forty victims were estimated to have been killed and buried on the property.
But a few questions remained – was the headless woman really Belle Gunness? Had she really been murdered? Had Ray Lamphere done it?
On May 19th, 1908, a couple of dental bridges were found near the Gunness home. A local dentist identified these as belonging to Belle Gunness, thus convincing many people that the headless woman was, indeed, her. But not all were convinced. The body was shorty, and had different proportions to that of Gunness herself. The discovery of the dental bridges was just simply not enough for a positive identification.
It appeared as though Belle Gunness, assisted by Ray Lamphere, had cut her losses, taken all the cash she’d stolen from her suitors, faked her own death, and fled the scene of her crimes.
Meanwhile, Ray Lamphere was in police custody for arson and murder. The prosecution acknowledged that it was difficult to hold someone responsible for Gunness’s death – if, in fact, the body was hers – after the discovery of such atrocious acts on her property. And, again, they weren’t even sure if the body was truly hers. With murder off the table, they could still pursue charges of arson – it was, after all, illegal to commit arson.
While prosecutors were certain that Lamphere was aware of what Gunness had been up to on her farm, he denied this vehemently. He had no idea – if he had, he would have turned her in himself, lest he become another one of her unwitting victims.
Lamphere continued to plead his innocence. His reputation, though not great to begin with, was further tarnished by Gunness’s campaign around town, slandering Lamphere’s name. But the prosecution had enough to suggest that, though he may not have committed the murders, he had more than enough motive to burn down his ex-lover’s farm.
The jury agreed. They believed that he had started the fire. However, it was clear that the children had not died in the arson. Traces of strychnine had been found in their systems, indicating that Gunness had poisoned them prior to the fire being set.
Ray Lamphere was acquitted of charges of murder, but was convicted on charges of arson in November of 1908.
Later, Lamphere confessed to Reverend Edwin Schell on his deathbed that he knew that Gunness was placing ads seeking husbands, only to murder the suitors that arrived, and take the sums of money she’d convinced them to withdraw from their accounts. He also confessed that Gunness had tasked him with burning the farm down.
Furthermore, Lamphere confessed that the headless body had, indeed, been a ruse to mislead investigators into believing that Gunness herself had been murdered. He asserted that she fled to avoid prosecution for her misdeeds. She’d been spurned on by Asle Helgelien’s insistance that he visit the property, and see if brother for himself.
A journalist, Edward Bechly, desperately wanted this confession. The Reverend, and his wife, declined to allow Edward to publish the account. However, another newspaper scooped the story, and published the account. Following this, the Reverend allowed Edward to publish it in his own newspaper.
A year after his conviction for arson, Ray Lamphere died in prison of tuberculosis.
The mystery of what ever happened to Belle Gunness remains just that – a mystery. Some believe that the headless body found ont he property truly was that of Belle Gunness. Though many “sightings” of her have been reported over the years, none could be positively identified as truly being Belle Gunness.
Following the media frenzy around the discovery of the crimes, the Gunness Farm became a tourist attraction. To this day, the La Porte County Historical Society Museum have maintained a permanent exhibit surrounding the infamous Belle Gunness.
In 1931, a woman by the name of Esther Carlson was arrested in Los Angeles. She’d been arrested for poisoning a Norwegian-American man, and then stealing his money. While awaiting trial, the woman died of tuberculosis.
Many couldn’t help but notice the striking resemblance between Esther and Hell’s Belle Gunness.
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Sources:
Crime Figure – Belle Gunness – Biography.com
The Story of Belle Gunness, the Meat-Cleaver Wielding Serial Killer of Turn-of-the-Century Indiana – Daniel Rennie & Jaclyn Anglis – All That’s Interesting
Corpses in the Pig Pen: The Tale of Indiana’s Most Notorious Serial Killer – Lucas Reilly – Mental Floss
What Really Happened to Belle Gunness, Serial Killer and Butcher of Men – Hilary Shenfeld – A&E
Belle Gunness – Bruce R. Johnson – La Porte Historical Society Museum
Female Criminals podcast – “The Murder Farm” Belle Gunness Part 1 and Part 2
Belle Gunness Wikipedia page