Belle Gunness

Belle Gunness in 1904

Belle Gunness (born November 11, 1859 in Selbu , Norway as Brynhild Paulsdatter Størset , † probably April 28, 1908 in La Porte , Indiana ) was a Norwegian - American serial killer. The number of victims of the "black widow" is between 20 and 40.

Life

Early years and first marriage

Størset was born in Selbu, Norway, in 1859. She emigrated to the United States in 1881 and settled in Chicago in 1883 . She changed her first name to "Belle" (sometimes "Bella") and in 1884 she married Mads Sorenson, who was also from Norway. The couple opened a pastry shop in Chicago in 1896, which burned down the following year. The parents of two children bought a house from the sum insured. In the same year, Caroline, the older child, died. The attending physician diagnosed colon inflammation . Two years later, Caroline's brother Axel died of the same disease. Presumably her two children were Sorenson's first victims, and the symptoms could also result from poisoning. In 1897 and 1899 the Sorensons became parents again, and Myrtle and Lucy were born. Mads Sorenson died on July 30, 1900, showing the typical symptoms of strychnine poisoning. However, the family doctor assumed a fatal heart attack due to a previously diagnosed heart disease . Sorenson moved her two children to La Porte , Indiana , where she bought a farm on the outskirts of town with her husband's life insurance.

Relocation to La Porte and second marriage

On April 1, 1902, Sorenson married the Norwegian-born Peter Gunness in La Porte. Gunness was widowed again in December 1902. Peter Gunness died when a machine fell off a shelf and split his skull in two. Jennie Olsen, a household teenage girl, publicly stated that Gunness killed her husband. In 1906, the then 16-year-old Olsen disappeared from La Porte, Gunness said in response to inquiries that the girl was going to school in California. Belle Gunness was pregnant in December 1902 and gave birth to their son Philip in 1903. To run the farm, the widowed Gunness hired tramps, who apparently moved on again after a few days or weeks. She also posted personals looking for a Norwegian man to marry. In response to these advertisements, several men answered who came to La Porte with cash in their pockets, gave the money to Gunness and were never seen again.

The house fire

Gunness had employed a farm worker named Ray Lamphere since 1906, who was in love with Gunness and was annoying her with jealousy scenes because of the personals. She fired him in February 1908 and told the La Porte sheriff that Lamphere wanted to kill her. Gunness' farmhouse burned down on April 28, 1908. The bodies of Myrtle, Lucy and Philip and the body of a decapitated woman identified as Belle were found in the rubble. Ray Lamphere was arrested and charged with murder and arson. During a closer examination of the fire ruins a week after the fire, the investigators found a mass grave with ten male corpses and other unspecified human bone fragments in the remains of the pigsty. The remains of Jennie Olsen, another unidentified woman, and two unidentified children were also found.

The police continued to look for the burned woman's head in the ruins of the house, but did not find anything. Only Gunness' dental bridge, on which the anchor tooth still hung, was found. The incarcerated Lamphere protested that Belle Gunness was still alive and thus faked her death. On the eve of the fire, she spoke to a woman in a bar, took her away and murdered her. The farm worker also testified that he himself drove Gunness to the station in Stillwell after she set the house on fire. The police then looked for Gunness but could not find her. The coroner wrote in his final report that the headless woman was Belle Gunness, ignoring the outstanding questions, such as: B. after the whereabouts of the head. The rumors that Belle Gunness was still alive never stopped. In November 1908, Lamphere was tried and charged with murder and arson. The charge of murder was dropped because it could not be proven beyond doubt. Lamphere was sentenced to two years in prison for arson.

Esther Carlson

In 1931, in Los Angeles, a woman named Esther Carlson was charged with poisoning August Lindstrom, originally from Norway. According to the indictment, she was out for Lindstrom's money. Carlson had photographs of children that looked strikingly similar to the children of Belle Gunness, and their appearance was reminiscent of Belle Gunness. The city of La Porte could not afford to let the sheriff travel to Los Angeles to get an idea of ​​Carlson and the photos on site. Carlson died of tuberculosis before the trial began , so the suspicion of false identity was not pursued.

Exhumation in 2008 and memory of the victims

In 2008, forensic scientist Andrea Simmons from the University of Indianapolis looked into the case. With a group of students and scientists, Simmons wanted to find out whether the woman buried under the name Belle Gunness was actually Gunness. A DNA analysis was used to clarify whether the DNA of the corpse matches the DNA on a stamp from a love letter sent by Gunness to her future victim, Andrew Helgelien. The company failed because there was not enough DNA left to analyze.

On the 100th anniversary, gravestones and memorial stones were placed for the victims in the cemetery in La Porte. Peter Gunness and Jennie Olsen received a tombstone, the unidentified victims a joint memorial stone.

reception

The guitarist John 5 released the album The Devil Knows My Name in 2007 , on which the track The Black Widow of La Porte can be found. In 2011 the band Macabre released the song Bella The Butcher on their album Grim Scary Tales .

Web links

• Scenes at the Indiana Murder Farm , June 1, 1908 article in The Times Dispatch

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Angelika Franz: Belle Gunness - On the trail of a serial killer , article in Stern magazine on February 17, 2008, accessed on August 11, 2011.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Michael Newton: The great encyclopedia of serial killers ; Stocker, Graz, 2002, ISBN 3-85365-189-5 ; Pp. 152/153.
3. ↑ Olsen is named in some sources as Peter Gunness' eldest daughter, in other sources as the niece of Peter Gunness or Belle Sorensons, still others name Olsen as "foster child".
4. ↑ Andrew K. Helgelien (1858-1908) at findagrave.com, accessed August 11, 2011.
5. ↑ Article on the memorial stones ( Memento of the original from January 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on laportecountyhistory.org, accessed August 11, 2011.