The American dream or an American nightmare? Listen to the story of Belle Gunness also known as the Mistress of the Murder Farm and the Midwest Black Widow. She did not discriminate! Her victims included husbands, offspring, and men that would be referred to as her cousins. How many male cousins did Belle have? Listen and find out!
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TuneInEarly Life
Belle Gunness was born Brynhild Paulsdatter Storset on November 11, 1859, in Selbu, Norway. She was the youngest of eight children born to a stonemason and his wife. She grew up not poor but frugal and one of her older sisters eventually moved to America. When Belle was 22, she followed and immigrated to Chicago.
Belle Gunness Gets Married
While in Chicago she met Mads Ditlev Anton Sorenson and they were married in 1884. They had 4 children, but 2 of the children died in their infancy. Together they opened a candy store, but it burned to the ground. In 1900 their home also burned down. They were able to collect the insurance money in both cases.
Then on July 30th, 1900, Mads fell dead, some say it was due to a cerebral hemorrhage and others believe it was a heart attack. Belle said that he had complained of a headache and she had given him some quinine. His family was suspicious of his death since it happened to fall on the one day that he had two overlapping life insurance policies. Belle made out with the equivalent today of $150,000 in life insurance money. Despite the family’s suspicions, no inquiries were made.
Belle Gunness Buys a Hog Farm
After Mads’ death, Belle decided to pick and leave Chicago. With her two daughters Myrtle and Lucy and her foster daughter Jenny, she bought a 48-acre farm in La Porte, Indiana. People in the area described Belle as rugged and strong. She was a hog farmer that, legend has it, could lift a 100 lbs hog in each arm.
On April 1st, 1902 she married Peter Gunness. Peter came into the relationship with an infant daughter, Jennie, but within a week of their marriage, the baby died. By December of that year, Peter passed away after a sausage grinder fell on his head from a wobbly shelf. The coroner described the incident as “queer” but wrote it off as an accident.
The only person who seemed to know what was happening was her teenage foster daughter Jennie Olsen. Jennie told her schoolmates that her “mama killed her papa.” Shortly after, Jennie went missing with Belle telling people in town that she had gone to school in California.
Belle Gunness Looks for a New Husband
After Peter’s death, Belle had to find a new way to get a husband. She started placing ads in Norwegian newspapers published in the US. One of 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 a view of joining fortunes. No replies by letter are considered unless the sender is willing to follow the answer with a personal visit. Triflers need not apply.
She would target Norwegian men because there was more of a chance of them being immigrants with no family around. She would promise them a farm with a wife who knows their culture. They would come to the farm with their belongings and fortune ready to make a new life, but they wouldn’t leave. Belle would tell neighbors that they were cousins visiting from out of town. Her mailman claimed she wrote eight to 10 letters a day and received as many, getting cranky on the rare days when none came.
One man, George Anderson was sleeping in his bed at Belle’s house and awoke to find her standing over him. He was so freaked out that he bolted and never looked back.
The Disappearance of Andrew Helgenlien
In 1906 she was corresponding with 49-year-old Andrew Helgenlien. He had found her ad and they wrote letters back and forth. One letter read: “We shall be so happy when you once get here. My heart beats in wild rapture for you, My Andrew, I love you. Come prepared to stay forever.” After almost 2 years of correspondence, Andrew decided to move to La Porte to marry Belle Gunness on January 3rd, 1908.
Belle had been able to find victims that didn’t have a family to question their whereabouts, but Andrew was different. Andrew had a brother, Asle, living in the US. When Andrew stopped answering letters, Asle demanded answers. He wrote to Belle who tried to convince him that Andrew had left. She thought he had moved to Chicago or back to Norway, but Asle didn’t buy it.
At the same time, Belle was having personal issues with her handyman, Ray Lamphere. Ray had feelings for Belle and was jealous of the men and all the relationships Belle was having. They had an intimate relationship but when Andrew showed up Ray left in a jealous rage. On April 28th, 1908 Belle went to see a lawyer to write up a will saying that she feared for her life because she had to fire a jealous handyman.
A Mysterious Fire
When she left the office she bought toys for her children and 2 gallons of Kerosene. That night, her house was on fire. Once the fire was extinguished authorities searched the property and found the remains of her 3 children in the basement of the house. They also found the body of a decapitated woman who they believed to be Belle Gunness.
Andrew’s brother read about the fire in the paper and showed up at the farm looking for his brother. They couldn’t find anything in the rubble but Asle started asking farm hands if they had noticed any digging that spring. Hoping to find a clue related to his brother’s disappearance, Asle, and the farmhand began to dig up a pile of soft dirt in the hog pen. To their horror, they ended up finding Andrew Helgelien’s head, hands, and feet, stuffed into an oozing gunny sack.
More Remains Are Found
Further digging yielded more grisly discoveries. In two days, investigators found a total of 11 burlap sacks, which contained “arms hacked from the shoulders down, masses of human bone wrapped in loose flesh that dripped like jelly.” They were able to identify Andrew, Olé, and Jennie Olsen. The remains of 11 other bodies were found, including 2 children around 8 years old. Despite the horrors they found, Ray was charged with murder by arson. He was found guilty of arson, but not murder. The reasoning was that they believed the children and woman were killed before the fire, not as a result of the fire.
Arsenic and strychnine were found in the stomachs of the woman and two of the children. Ray denied having anything to do with the murders or the fire but remained in prison for the rest of his life. On his deathbed, only a year into his imprisonment, he admitted to his cellmate that he and Belle had murdered 42 men together. She would poison them, hit them over the head, and dismember them. Then he would bury them.
Was Belle Gunness Really Dead?
Over time suspicion grew that the female remains found in the rubble weren’t Belle Gunness’s remains at all.
Eerily, in 1931, a woman named Esther Carlson was arrested in Los Angeles for poisoning a Norwegian-American man and attempting to steal his money. She died of tuberculosis while awaiting trial. But many couldn’t help but notice that she bore a striking resemblance to Gunness — and even had a photograph of kids who looked a lot like Gunness’s children.