Belle Gunness – The Lonely Hearts Serial Killer

Belle Gunness didn’t have much growing up. Daughter of a stonemason in a tiny village in Norway, she yearned for the finer things in life. Belle wanted security, wealth – the “American Dream”, and she would take it by any means necessary. In 1881, 22-year-old Brynhild Paulsdatter Strseth immigrated to America, changed her name to Belle, and got to work on a series of schemes that would earn her a ton of cash and a top spot in America’s list of “Femmes Fatale”. Until her death, her neighbors believed her to be a tragic, heroic mother. It was only after her passing that her acts of arson, insurance fraud, and a series of gristly murders, that society came to know her as Hell’s Belle, Lady Bluebeard, and The Black Widow.

Belle Gunness’s First Husband

In 1893, Belle met and married Mads Sorenson. Together, they owned and operated a confectionary store and before long, had four children: Caroline, Axel, Myrtle, and Lucy. With so much going well for the Sorenson family, Mads even convinced Belle to foster a fifth child named Jennie Olsen. While Mads thought he had it all, Bell’s desires for more grew. It was time for some drastic changes.

The store mysteriously burned down. The Sorensons collected the insurance money, but Belle wasn’t ready to stop there. Shortly after, two of their children, Caroline and Axel, passed away. The coroner’s office reported the children died of acute colitis; however, strychnine poisoning shares many of the same symptoms and was likely the children’s genuine cause of death. The bereaved mother collected the insurance on her kids. 

Honey, We Need More Insurance

In 1900, Belle talked Mads into switching insurance companies. In the opening of one and the cancelling of the other, there was a day where the two policies would overlap. And wouldn’t you know it! Mads Sorenson dropped dead on that very day and both insurance companies paid his widow. The first doctor to examine Mads claimed that he died of strychnine poisoning, but Bell’s own doctor overruled him and noted the cause of death as heart failure. 

With such a close call, and enough money to keep Belle happy for a while, it was time to pick up and move. 

Belle’s Indiana Farm House

In 1901, Belle bought a 41-acre farm in LaPorte, Indiana, but when her bank account ran a little low, one building on the property burned down and she collected the insurance money. With only three children left, Belle would need a more long-term plan to keep her in the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed. In 1902, she married a local butcher, Peter Gunness. He too was a widow and introduced two more daughters to the family. Where Peter saw a second chance at happiness, Belle Gunness saw a pay day.

The End of the Gunness Family

A few months after the wedding, Peter’s youngest daughter died of an unknown illness while Belle’s bank account grew a little healthier. After the funeral, Peter sent his eldest daughter to stay with relatives. Maybe he saw the sideways glances his recent wife was giving her, or maybe her presence reminded him of her mother, but Swanhild Gunness was the only one that would escape Belle’s murderous clutches. 

By December of that same year, Peter met his untimely death when a meat grinder fell on his head from a top shelf in the cupboard. At least, that is what his crying, pregnant widow told police. The coroner’s office noticed that the body showed signs of strychnine poisoning, but could not definitively prove it and, once again, Belle Gunness got away with murder. Six months later, baby Philip Gunness was born. With three children, and no more interested suiters in town, Belle thought up a new way to keep those dollars rolling in. 

Belle’s Lonely Hearts Ads

Belle began placing ads in prominent newspapers. Single woman with large farm seeking well-off gentleman for marriage (or something of the like). She asked the respondents to come to LaPort, bring all of their cash, and not to tell anyone they were coming. Once they arrived, Belle talked them into buying shares of her farm by depositing their cash into her bank account. Once she had what she needed, she would poison their food or bash them over the head with a meat cleaver. No one ever saw them again. 

After six years of her lonely hearts scam, a mysterious fire burned the main farmhouse down. The authorities found the bodies of Belle’s three natural children, Lucy, Myrtle, and Philip and a headless woman in the basement who they believed to be Belle. The police believed that the poor widow Gunness had been murdered and that her children had been burned. That was until a man named Asle Helgelien showed up just days after the fire. 

A Gruesome Discovery

Asle Helgelien’s brother Andrew had responded to one of Belle’s ads and. Against his brother’s advice, Andrew made the trip down to LaPort. Asle knew that his brother must have met with foul play because he was expecting a communication from him that never came. The Helgeliens were very close, and it was out of character for his brother to disappear. With the help of farmhand Ray Lamphere, the sheriff performed a search of the property. What they found was horrifying.

While walking through the pigpens, the Sherif noticed multiple areas in the ground where the dirt was slightly more depressed and uneven. He grabbed a shovel and started digging. He didn’t get deep before he found a gunny sack containing two severed human hands, two feet, and yes – you guessed it – the head of Asle Helglien’s missing brother. The Sherif called for help and within two days, officers uncovered 11 more sacs of body parts with legs cut off at the knee, arms cut off at the shoulder, and head removed from the torso. Sadly, Belle’s foster daughter, Jennie, was among the dead. Though authorities could not identify all the bodies, Belle Gunness is estimated to have killed more than 40 people. 

The Black Widow

The town’s perception of the poor, twice widowed mother who died trying to rescue her kids from a fire flipped as Belle Gunness became known as the “Black Widow”, “Indiana Ogress”, owner of the “horror farm”. Both police and media questioned whether the burned, headless woman was Belle Gunness or a victim she used as a body double to fake her own death. The fear was that Belle had picked up and moved to a new town to carry on with her murderous schemes. After picking through the ashes of the farmhouse, police found some dental bridge work that belonged to Belle. The coroner believed this evidence linked the headless corpse to Belle Gunness and closed the book on that part of the investigation. 

Ray Lamphere

Police arrested Ray Lamphere on May 22, 1908. He was charged with murder and arson, though at the trial, he was found guilty of arson only. He was to serve 21 years in prison; however, he contracted tuberculosis and died within the first year of his sentence. On his deathbed, he confessed that he and Belle Gunness were part-time lovers and that he witnessed the murder of Andrew Helgelien. When he tried to get Belle to pay him for his silence, she fired him and tried to get him arrested for trespassing. He also told the prison pastor that days before the fire, Belle had withdrawn all of her money from the bank and traveled to Chicago to hire a live-in maid. Lamphere was positive that it was the maid’s body they found in the house and that Belle had masterminded the entire thing.

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References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Gunness https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/belle-gunness https://allthatsinteresting.com/belle-gunness