Serial Killer #2: Belle Gunness AKA Lady Bluebeard

For our second serial killer, I decided to find a less gruesome serial killer to introduce Belle Gunness, born in Selbu, Norway, on November 11, 1859. She was the youngest of eight children, and her childhood stories are conflicting depending on where you get the information. But, from what “the Big Book of Serial Killers” by Jack Rosewood says, Gunness attended a dance while pregnant by a wealthy boy. This resulted in a miscarriage a year later, but the attacker was not prosecuted for the attack.

After the miscarriage, she worked on a farm to make enough money to follow her sisters to America. She ended up coming to America in 1881. She married  Mads Ditlev Anton Sorenson, and they opened up a confectionery, a candy shop, that was unsuccessful and ended up burning down within a year of opening up. The couple took the insurance money to buy a house. Another conflicting part of Gunness’s past is how many children she had; Rosewood says, “it is believed Gunness bore four children to Sorenson.” From oldest to youngest, Caroline, Axel, Myrtle, and the youngest, Lucy.

Suspiciously, the two oldest died from acute colitis, and since their lives were insured, the couple got the money. On July 30, 1900, Sorenson died. This was the only day that the two live policies on him overlapped. The doctor who did the initial report on Sorenson said that they had been treating him for heart problems, so he died from heart failure. The death wasn’t considered suspicious, so no autopsy was done. Gunness claimed the insurance money the day after the funeral, which led Sorenson’s family to believe she poisoned him for the insurance money. However, even with the suspicions, she still got the money.

With this money, she bought a farm in La Porte, Indiana. Before moving to the farm, she met up with Peter Gunness, whose wife recently passed. They got married on April 1, 1902, and a week later, Peter’s baby died with Gunness alone, and a little later, Peter passed as well.

Now onto the proved murders, there are up to 42 possible murders, but 13 confirmed for sure, the First being Peter. In December 1902, Gunness claimed he reached for his slippers near the stove, scalded with brine. Appar\ently a piece of a sausage machine fell and hit him on the head, causing a fatal injury. Gunness gained three thousand dollars from this death, but the coroner found he had been murdered upon further review. During the investigation, Jennie Olsen lived with the Gunness’s and told a friend at school that “My mama killed my papa. She kit him with a cmeat cleaver, and he died. Dont tell a soul.” When brought in front of the jury, she denied ever saying that. This healed Gunness convinced the jury she was innocent.

In May 1903, she gave birth to a baby boy and named him Phillip. Three years later, she told her neighbor that Jennie went off to college it would later be reviled; this was not true.

In 1907 Ray Lamphere was hired to help work on the farm. About the same time, Gunness put an advertisement in the news looking for a husband (a normal thing to do around this time), and she received many responses. Many men came to the farm, but none left.

John Moe was the first of many disappeared men; he left his farm in Minnesota and brought one thousand dollars with him as requested by Gunness. Within a week, he had disappeared. Next up was George Anderson from Missouri. He had dinner with Gunness, and they decided that he would pay off her mortgage when they got married, but when he woke in the middle of the night and saw Gunness looking at him in a stage way, he fled back to his farm in Missouri.

Ole B. Budsberg arrived at the farm from Wisconsin and was last seen alive at the local La Porte bank on April 6, 1907. After he disappeared, his sons contacted Gunness, but she reported not seeing him ever, much less did she know where he was. This pattern continued many times that year.

In 1908 Andrew Helgelien from South Dakota wrote to Gunness. Within a few days of his arrival, the two were seen at the local La Porte bank, and, to no one’s surprise, a few days later, he disappeared.

Now, remember Ray, who was hired to help on the farm? Well, he fell in love with Gunness and became very jealous of the guys coming and going from the farm. He was fired in February 1908, and Gunness claimed he was insane. There was a sanity hearing held to see if he was sane or not. He was ruled sane, which made Gunness mad, so she decided to say he was a threat to her and her family, so he was arrested for trespassing.

Andrew Helgelien’s brother Asle got suspicious of his brother’s disappearance and Gunness, knowing she was in trouble, decided to go to her lawyer to plan her escape. Giving her estate to her children, paying off the mortgage on the farm, but the one thing she never did was tell the police that the threat from Ray was escalating.

On April 28, 1908, Ray’s replacement, Joe Maxson, woke up to the smell of smoke. He opened to door to see flames everywhere. He called out for Gunness and the kids but heard no reply. He jumped out of the window and went to get help. By the time he got help, it was too late. The farmhouse was burnt to a crisp, and the remains of a woman and four children were found. The woman’s head was missing, so it could not be determined if it belonged to Gunness or not. Ray was the top suspect because of Gunness’s claims, and a witness said they saw him running from the fire, so he was charged with murder and arson. Neighbors and old friends were asked to look at the woman’s remains and identify it as Gunness, but they all said it was not her. The remains belonged to someone five foot three inches, and Gunness was six-foot; it wasn’t a match. After an autopsy, there was a lethal amount of strychnine found in their stomachs. Also found was a piece of dental bridgework was made for Gunness, which made the corner conclude the female was Gunness after all.

After this, Maxson went to the sheriff with the specific chores Gunness had him do. Ine included bringing loads of dirt to a large area where the hogs were fed. He told the sheriff that several depressions in the ground that Gunness said were just full of rubbish. On May 3, 1908, the sheriff ordered authorities to unearth what was in the ground. As the digging continued into the hog’s pen, more bodies were found, including Ole B. Budsberg, Thomas Lindboe (another hired man for Gunness), Henry Gurholdt from Wisconsin, Olaf Svenherud (real creative Disney) from Chicago, John Moe, and Olaf Lindbloom from Wisconsin. The bodies of two unidentified children were found along with Andrew Helgelien’s and Jennie Olsen (remember her, she “went off to college”).

 

Other possible victims include:

• William Mingay from New York City
• Herman Konitzer from Chicago
• Charles Edman of Indiana
• George Bery from Illinois
• Christie Hilkven from Wisconsin sold his farm and left for La Porte
• Chares Neiburg, who told his friends he was going to visit Gunness and never returned
• John McJunkin left his wife and moved to La Porte
• Olaf Jensen moved from Norway to Indiana and wrote to his relatives about moving in with a wealthy widow in La Porte.
• Henry Bizge of La Porte and his hired man Edward Canary
• Bert Chase of Indiana sold his butchery store and told associates he would visit a wealthy widow. His brother got a telegram that he died in a train accident, but it was found to be fake when investigated.
• Tonnes Peterson Lien from Minnesota
• A gold ring with the engraving “S.B. May 28 1907” found in the house
• George Bradley from Illinois who went to visit a widow and three children in La Porte
• T.J. Tienfland of Minneapolis was said to see Gunness
• Frank Riedinger from Wisconsin went to marry in Indiana but never returned
• Emil Tell from Missouri traveled to La Porte
• Lee Porter from Oklahoma left his wife and told his brother to marry a wealthy widow in La Porte.
• John Hunter from Duquesne, Pennsylvania, left after telling his children he would marry a wealthy woman in northern Indiana.
• Geroge Williams of Wapawallopen
• Ludwig Stoll of Mount Yeager
• Abraham Phillips, who worked on railroads in West Virginia, left to marry a wealthy widow in northern Indiana, and a railway wristwatch was found in the ruins
• Benjamin Carling of Chicago told his wife he would talk to a wealthy widow in La Porte about an investment. The wife later identified his remains in La Portes Cemetary
• Aug. Gunderson of Wisconsin
• Ole Oleson of Michigan
• Lindner Nikkelsen of South Dakota
• Andrew Anderson of Kansas
• Johann Sorensen of Missouri
• A man named Hinkley

Reported unnamed victims were:

• Mrs. H. Whitzar’s daughter of Ohio who disappeared while attending Indiana University near La Porte in 1902
• Unnamed men and women were alleged to disappear in September of 1906 when Jennie Olsen went missing. Gunness told the neighbor they were professors from Los Angeles that took Jennie with them to California
• Jennie Graham’s brother of Wisconsin who had gone to married a wealthy widow in La Porte
• A hired man from Ohio disappeared, but Gunness was found with his horse and buggy
• unidentified man from Montana who told people he was going to sell his horse and buggy to Gunness. She had the horse and buggy, but he was never to be found again

Due to the way the bodies were dug up, the exact amount of bodies unearthed is unknown but is estimated to be about 12. they are all buried in either Pine Lake cemetery in La Porte or Patton Cemetary near the grave of Peter Gunness.

This story doesn’t have a nice happy ending. The trial I can tell you about is Ray Lamphere’s, the guy that got blamed for the whole house burning situation. His defense attorney argued that he is not guilty because the body in that farmhouse was not Gunness, so why would he murder some lady he has no ties to. The dental work found at the scene was also a mystery, how in the world did the gold not melt? They tested it out with a similar dental piece to Gunness’s and found that it melted. Maxson, Ray’s replacement, witnessed the case and said that he saw a police officer plant the bridgework at the scene. Regardless, Ray was found guilty and was sentenced in November 1908 but died in December 1909 of tuberculosis.

Before Ray died, he told the reverend comforting him that he had helped Gunness bury the bodies. He said that she charmed the suitor with a good meal and then drugged his coffee. Once the drugs kicked in, Gunness would hit them in the head with a meat chopper; other times, she would wait until they went to bed and chloroform them while they slept. She disposed of them in many ways, including feeding them to the hogs. He also said the woman found as Gunness in the fire was a woman she lured by saying she could be her housekeeper. She bashed her head, attached weights to her, and put her into the deeper area of the swamp. She killed her kids with chlorophyll or smothering. Ray helped her escape,  but Gunness did not meet him at the agreed part of the road but instead, he thinks she went into the woods across the field. According to Ray, Gunness murdered forty-two men.

Sightings of Gunness were reported for decades after this in San Fransisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. In 1931 she was apparently in Mississippi, living on a big farm.

The woman in her farmhouse posing as her was never identified but in 1931 a woman named Esther Carlson found in Los Angeles was arrested for poisoning a man for money. It was believed that this woman was Gunness, and based on photos, two people that knew Gunness said that it was, in fact, the same person. Nothing was proven because she died while awaiting trial. Another unsatisfying piece of information is in 2007, students from the University of Indianapolis were asked to exhume the headless body to try and identify the body. Permission was given but, there was not enough DNA evidence to figure out who this mysterious woman was.

I’ll leave you with this fun fact: while in Chicago, Gunness ran a “baby farm” where 21 babies disappeared. This supposed foster care system has created a mystery, where are these children? No one knows.