2024-01-11 03:42:00
Belle Gunness with her three adopted daughters Jennie, Myrtle and Lucy. According to the first expert reports, none of them might survive the devastating fire in their house.
It took them years to discover that she was an unscrupulous serial killer, but it was too late: Belle Gunness had disappeared from the face of the earth and no one knew for sure if she had died in the fire that devoured her farm and consumed her three children. or if she killed them herself and engineered their deaths using the decapitated corpse of another woman.
Thus began the never-solved mystery of the fate of the woman who was born in Norway with the name Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth and who was recorded in the criminal history of the United States as Hell’s Belle, Lady Bluebeard. and also simply as the “Black Widow”, for her habit of murdering husbands, lovers and even her own children to collect life insurance.
It was never known exactly how many her victims were, but it is estimated that in her criminal career – between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th – she presumably killed her five biological children and her adopted daughter, as well as her two husbands, one or perhaps two daughters of her second husband, several suitors, and regarding thirty agricultural workers who worked on her farm.
Her life, her crimes, her ability to evade justice and the scene – real or ingeniously staged – of her death gave rise to stories that turned her into a legend where reality and fiction were mixed until they were confused, but not exactly elucidated. how she committed the dozens of murders that led her to be one of the most famous murderers in the world.
After her uncertain death, whether or not it occurred in 1908, for decades there were people who said they had seen her in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles or New York, but she was never positively identified. As for the decapitated and charred body on the farm, it was never known if it belonged to him or not.
Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth was born in Norway. She died as Belle Gunness somewhere in the United States in some unknown year.
Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth was born poor in a small fishing village on the west coast of Norway on an uncertain day in 1859. As a girl she knew that neither poverty nor the Nordic cold were for her and that to lead the life she dreamed of – with good weather and money – he had to leave there to try his luck elsewhere.
He was 24 years old when he was able to embark to cross the Atlantic, reach the United States, and land in Chicago with only his attractions and his ambition in tow.
It was 1883 when she met her first husband, Mads Sorenson, a conservative man, eager to start a family, a wish he fulfilled with Belle by adopting three orphans named Jennie, Myrtle and Lucy.
The testimonies of the neighbors agree that they seemed to form a happy family, despite the fact that Mads’ store was not doing very well, not to mention that it was making continuous losses. That balance in the red, however, was solved overnight when a fierce fire devoured the business and also the house where the family lived.
That time no one died and the losses turned into profits when Mads and Belle collected the insurance they had taken out for the business and the home.
But death would not take long to knock at the door of the Sorenson family’s new home. At the beginning of 1890, Mads died suddenly, when nothing might have predicted it because he was a man with iron health.
The death certificate said the cause was a myocardial infarction. With that document, Belle went to two insurance companies to take out as many policies that had the inconsolable widow as beneficiary for a total of $8,000, a true fortune for the time.
A postcard of the La Porte County morgue, where the ghoulish Belle Gunness performed (La Porte County Historical Society)
With that money, plus the money from the sale of the house and the remainder of the insurance from the fire, Belle took her three adopted daughters and moved to Indiana, with the project of setting up a farm.
He found an ideal place, at a very low price. It was located on the outskirts, with a good expanse of countryside that until not long ago had functioned as a brothel. When the madam and owner of the establishment died, no one had wanted to buy it due to her bad reputation, but Belle saw an opportunity in that.
The woman and her daughters were very well received by the neighbors. They saw in that family and their rural enterprise an opportunity to erase the shameful past of the place thanks to the productive enterprise that was beginning and that, in addition, would generate work.
In Indiana, Belle also met a widower with two daughters named Peter Gunness, whom she married a few months later. Gunness – from whom Berta adopted her surname so as to never give it up – moved with her daughters to the farm, where they formed a large family with five shared daughters.
But that idyllic climate was soon overshadowed by misfortune: they had not been living together for more than two months when Peter’s youngest daughter died of mysterious causes. And that was not the only death, because before they were married for a year, Peter also died.
According to the testimony of Jenny – Belle’s eldest daughter – when she was bustling around in the kitchen she heard a heartbreaking scream from her mother in one of the upper rooms of the house. She ran up the stairs and found her mother covering her face with both hands and her good stepfather sprawled on the floor, with a pool of blood around his broken head. Her mother told him that the huge meat grinder they used on the farm had fallen and hit Peter in the skull.
Although the case was not very clear and the teenager Jenny’s story – almost identical to that of her mother – had certain dark points, the death was classified as an accident.
A few days later, Belle collected the life insurance that Peter had taken out on her just a few weeks before.
That prompted the police to revisit the case and question Belle, who repeated her story. When the sheriff wanted to talk to Jenny, her mother told him that he no longer lived with her, that he was studying at a school in San Francisco.
Jenny was never seen once more. She did not return to the farm nor were any records of her time at school found.
Police personnel investigate the remains of the Gunness family home, which burned on April 28, 1908. Four bodies were found there: Belle’s daughters and a headless torso believed to be that of the mother (Historical Society of La Porte County)
Belle allowed a reasonable amount of time to pass following Peter’s death before she began to publish ads in the newspapers – in the “Lonely Hearts” section – looking for a new partner. It wasn’t just any advertisement: anyone who wanted to have a date with her had to go to Indiana and bring money to invite her out and give her a gift that showed her interest.
In the following months, dozens of men showed up, but Belle did not seem to have any luck, because they were not seen once more. The widow, who wanted to rebuild her life, told the neighbors that they had left.
The widow also did not seem to have any luck with the laborers that, one by one, she hired to work on the farm. They all disappeared within a month. Ella belle used to say that they had left or that she had fired them because they weren’t good workers.
Only following the farm fire would the truth be known, both regarding the suitors and the day laborers.
In the spring of 1907, Belle was still without a stable partner, but she hired a 30-year-old carpenter named Ray Lamphere to help her on the farm. The man not only found work but also housing, because he stayed to live there.
He was considerably younger than the widow and, as he boasted to other men on their nights out drinking, he became Belle’s lover. To reinforce her statement, he used to show them the gifts she gave him, from an expensive watch to suits and hats.
But Lamphere soon suffered a harsh disappointment. After a short trip, Belle returned to Indiana accompanied by another man and announced that they were getting married. His name was Andrew Helgelein, he was younger than the widow and also wealthy.
Belle fired Lamphere, telling him that his services were no longer needed, and the spiteful carpenter left, promising revenge, while the couple prepared everything for the wedding.
But Belle and Andrew never said yes. A week later, the suitor vanished and the bride, tearful, said that she had abandoned her.
Only some time later – when Belle had already disappeared – it was learned that, before arriving with Berta at the farm and announcing the wedding, Helgelin had withdrawn all the money he had in a bank in South Dakota. When the cashier asked her why she was doing it, she replied that she was going to get married.
The remains of the disappearance, whether alive or not, of Belle Gunnes, who was recorded in the criminal history of the United States as Hell’s Belle, Lady Bluebeard (Mrs. Bluebeard) and also simply as the “Black Widow”
Without Helgelein and without Lamphere – who continued to talk more regarding her in the village – at the beginning of 1908 Belle hired another laborer to help her on the farm. His name was Joe Maxson and he soon came to live in the house as well. He was a kind man, a good worker and he also used to entertain the evenings of the widow and her daughters by playing the violin.
In April of that year, Belle began to act concerned in front of the neighbors, to whom she told that Lamphere continued to threaten her. She was not satisfied with that: first she filed a police report and on the 27th of that month, she visited a lawyer to make her will. She told the man of law that she feared that Lamphere would end her life and that she believed that any of those nights he would burn down her house.
He decided to leave his properties to his children or, in the event of his death, to the Orphan’s Home orphanage. The lawyer told him that this was not the official name of the orphanage and that he needed a day or two to get the real name. However, the widow told him desperately: “There is no time to wait!” Although not convinced, the lawyer agreed to make the will and placed her name at the bottom of the document next to Belle’s.
On the morning of April 28, 1908, the Belle Gunness farm began to be devoured by the flames of an intentional fire. In it were Belle, 48, and her daughters.
Joe Maxson, who was working in the field, tried to save the mother and the girls, but he did not find them nor did they respond to his cries. Two neighbors, Clifford and Humphrey, ran to help him, but nothing might be done: the house was being consumed by fire and no one would be able to get out alive from inside.
When everything was in ashes, the bodies of Belle’s three daughters and that of a headless woman who the police might not identify but assumed to be the widow were found.
That seemed to be the sad end of Belle Gunness’s life.
As the woman’s body appeared decapitated, the police, local journalists and the justice system agreed that it had been a murder followed by intentional arson to erase the traces.
They had to put two and two together to find the alleged culprit: the scorned Ray Lamphere, who had shouted from the rooftops that he would get revenge on Belle. They arrested him and, although the man swore innocence with the same vehemence with which he had promised revenge, they took him to trial accused of four deaths.
During the trial many questions began to arise: Why had so many of Belle’s suitors come to town and disappeared, leaving behind their personal belongings? Where was Jennie? Why hadn’t she shown up to claim her inheritance?
The situation became even more confusing with the appearance of Asle Helgelein, Andrew’s older brother. The man had read in the newspapers regarding the fire and the death of Belle Gunness and wanted to know what had happened to his brother.
She reported that Andrew had contacted Belle through the Skandinaven column, where immigrant women wrote to find husbands. In her letters, Belle presented herself as “a good Norwegian woman” who wanted a faithful husband, lover, and provider for her and her family.
He also showed a letter in which Belle wrote to Andrew not to send cash through a bank but to keep his funds sewn inside his underwear and not to mention anything to anyone, “not even his relative.” nearest. Let this be a secret between the two of us and no one else. There are probably many more secrets, don’t you think?”
The museum that remembers the story of Belle Gunness, one of the most famous serial killers in the world
Since at first the police did not give much importance to Asle Helgelein’s testimony, he decided to investigate on his own. With the help of Joe Maxson, he began an excavation on the farm grounds and soon found boots, clothes, a watch… and a dismembered body.
“That’s my brother!” Asle shouted, horrified.
After that discovery, a police team took charge of continuing excavating. Four more bodies soon appeared. Those of two men and two women, one of whom was identified as Jennie, who had not gone to study in San Francisco but had been murdered by her own mother.
During the following days, new bodies appeared. Some belonged to those suitors who had disappeared without a trace, others to day laborers that Belle had supposedly fired.
The discoveries caused an unprecedented commotion in the town of La Porte, Indiana, which soon spread throughout the country. The case of Hell’s Belle, or Mrs. Bluebeard, as the media began to call her, in addition to being frightening, opened new questions.
The headless body that had appeared in the burned house was the biggest mystery of all: Did it belong to Belle or to another woman that the widow herself had killed so that she would be believed dead so she might escape?
The head never appeared. However, Gunness dentist Ira Norton said that if Belle’s false teeth were found in the rubble he might identify her. A few months ago she had made him a set of six porcelain teeth supported by gold.
A few days later they located Belle’s teeth, but that did not allow her to be identified with certainty either. Such a skilled and ruthless criminal – because the bodies found on the farm left no doubt regarding that – might well have left her teeth there to reinforce her intention to be believed dead.
Belle Gunnes thus became a criminal legend, but also a ghost whom, from time to time, someone believed they had seen. For more than two decades, police continued to receive complaints from people who were sure they had identified the fearsome Hell’s Belle.
In 1931 – 23 years following the farm fire – California police thought they had found Gunness when they arrested an elderly woman with documents in the name of Esther Carlson, accused of having poisoned her partner to collect life insurance.
The woman, who really had some resemblance to the fugitive murderer, died a natural death while awaiting trial without the mystery being revealed.
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