Warning: the following contains graphic descriptions of murder, extreme violence, and descriptions of human remains. Reader discretion is advised.
Belle Gunness was born Brynhild Paulsdatter Storset in the small village of Selbu, Norway in late 1859. Growing up, her family was incredibly poor, and Brynhild would work for neighboring farmers as a dairy maid.
In 1881, she immigrated to the United States to live with her sister, Nellie Larson, in Chicago, Illinois. Soon after arriving, Brynhild changed her name to Belle and got a job as a house servant. Three years later, she married Mads Sorenson, a fairly poor man who did not earn enough money to support the luxurious lifestyle that Belle craved.
In 1896, the couple opened a confectioner’s shop in downtown Chicago, but it wasn’t very successful and within the year, it burned down. Belle reported to insurance investigators that a kerosene lamp had set the fire after it exploded. Despite the fact that no lamps were ever found in the rubble of the shop, insurance money was paid to the Sorensons. With their newfound wealth, the couple purchased a home in Austin, Texas that burned down two years later. The Sorensons collected their insurance money and bought another house.
The Sorensons together had four children, Caroline, Axel, Myrtle, and Lucy. Caroline and Axel both died in infancy, with their cause of death listed as acute colitis. Acute colitis causes symptoms such as nausea, fever, cramps, and lower abdominal pain. Symptoms of which, incidentally, are also the symptoms of poisoning. Both children were insured.
Mads Sorenson died mid-1900 on the only day that his two life insurance policies overlapped—as one expired, the other began. Mads showed symptoms of strychnine poisoning, a deadly powder used to kill infestations of mice and rats. No autopsy was performed, as the Sorenson’s family doctor had been treating Mads for an enlarged heart. Belle was awarded $8,500 by insurance companies after her husband’s death, equivalent today to a little over $300,000.
With the money, Belle bought a large farm on the outskirts of La Porte, Indiana, and moved in with her two daughters and a young ward, Jennie Olsen. Shortly after Belle had bought the property, the farm’s carriage house and boat pavilion both burned down. On April 1st, 1902, Belle married Peter Gunness. One week after their marriage, Peter’s infant daughter died while alone in the house with her new step-mother, Belle. Peter died eight months later.
Belle told the coroner that an auger (that metal piece that looks like a very very sharp piece of rotini pasta) from a sausage grinder fell off of a shelf and hit Peter on the head, effectively killing him. Authorities ruled Peter’s death accidental, even though one of Belle’s daughters purportedly told her friend that “Momma brained Papa with a meat cleaver.” Belle Gunness collected $3,000 in insurance, a little over $100,000 today.
Editor’s Note: The print version of this article cuts off here. The rest of the story continues below.
Belle began placing lonely hearts advertisements, ads specifically made for young women in search of a husband, in Scandinavian newspapers around the country. Many men answered these adverts, and neighbors recalled seeing several middle-aged male visitors stop by Belle’s house—but never leave. When questioned, Belle responded that each man had left unexpectedly in the middle of the night.
Jennie Olsen, Belle’s ward, disappeared in 1906. Belle informed Jennie’s friends that she had been sent to a Lutheran College in California when they asked about her sudden disappearance.
The Gunness’ farmhand, Ray Lamphere, seemed to be madly in love with his employer and was increasingly jealous of the many male visitors she received. After causing many scenes, he was fired and Belle requested the courthouse hold a sanity hearing. He was officially declared sane, but was arrested a few days later for trespassing on the Gunness property. He began making thinly veiled threats towards Belle, all while refusing to leave her alone. Belle later admitted that she was afraid of him.
On April 28th, 1908, the Gunness farm house caught fire and burned to the ground. Workers sifting through the debris found the bodies of four individuals in the basement. It was immediately presumed that these were the bodies of Belle Gunness and her three children, Myrtle, 11, Lucy, 9, and Phillip, 5. Newspapers quickly picked up the story, publishing the tragic tale of a single, widowed mother who perished trying to save her children from the house fire. However, the family’s piano, which had resided on the first floor, was found on top of the bodies, which contradicted the first assumption that they had been sleeping in their bedrooms on the second floor. The adult body found in the rubble raised questions, as it was missing its head and one foot. It was also approximately half a foot shorter than Belle Gunness (with the estimated height of head), and at least a hundred pounds lighter than her. It became obvious that the bodies had been murdered and placed in the basement before the house had caught fire.
Merely one day prior, Belle went to see her lawyer and draw up her last will and testament. She left everything first to her children, then to a Chicago orphanage. Belle was quoted as telling her lawyer, “I’m afraid [Ray Lamphere]’s going to kill me and burn the house.” After learning about this while investigating the fire, Sheriff Smutzer detained Lamphere for questioning. Ray denied any knowledge of the fire, then asked if “Belle and the kids” had gotten out safely. However, an eyewitness claimed to see him fleeing from the Gunness property at the time of the fire. Lamphere was charged with arson and acquitted of four counts of murder.
A few days later, on May 2nd, Asle Helgelien came to La Porte looking for his brother, Andrew, who had answered one of Belle’s personal ads and hoped to marry her. Asle revealed that his brother and Belle had been in correspondence for many months before she invited Andrew to visit. At Belle’s persuasion, Andrew sold all of his property and assets and arrived at La Porte with around $3,000. After Asle stopped receiving any communications from his brother for several months, he quickly became worried and contacted Belle, who informed him that Andrew had left the sleepy Indiana town for Norway.
Asle was skeptical about Belle’s story and came to La Porte to talk with her in person. He contacted Sheriff Smutzer shortly after his arrival, who informed him that the Gunness farm had burned down with Belle inside. Asle then explained his situation, stating that he suspected his brother’s disappearance involved foul play. He asked the sheriff for permission to search the Gunness property for himself and potentially do some digging. With his newly granted permission, Asle went to the farm, determined to find anything relating to his brother.
A man by the name of Joe Maxson, who had been Lamphere’s replacement as the Gunness’ farmhand at the time of the fire, suggested that a likely place to start digging would be beneath the hog pen, where questionable soft depressions had been found in the ground. On May 5th, the pair dug up a potato sack that contained “two hands, two feet, and one head”, which Asle recognized as his brother. The rest of Andrew Helgelien’s body was found later that day, four feet below ground.
With the sheriff immediately contacted, the motley team of pseudo-investigators discovered dozens of similar “slumped depressions” throughout the Gunness property. The mysterious depressions yielded multiple burlap sacks containing “torsos and hands, arms hacked from the shoulders down, masses of human bone wrapped in loose flesh that dripped like jelly”. Each of the bodies had been butchered the same way—the body in question was decapitated, with the arms hacked off at the shoulders, and the legs severed at the knees. Each of the separated heads were found with severe blunt trauma and deep gashes, and many of them had Quicklime (i.e. calcium oxide, a chemical compound that absorbs carbon dioxide and can be used to stop the natural decay of a body, thus leaving it virtually undetectable) scattered over their faces and stuffed inside their ears. The Chicago Inter Ocean, a well-established newspaper of the time, noted that “[t]he bones had been crushed on the ends, as though they had been… struck with hammers after they were dismembered…”
Parts of five bodies were found on the first day—including Andrew Helgelien’s—and an additional six were found the next, with numerous miscellaneous parts found as well. Some were under the original hog pen, and others near an outhouse or the property’s lake. The second body found was that of Jennie Olsen, Belle Gunness’ young ward. Eventually, “the police stopped counting”. With this new information, newspapers began reassessing their original descriptions of Belle as a praiseworthy woman who perished in the fire “in a desperate attempt to save her children”. Despite the initial success regarding the accurate identification of Andrew Helgelien, and the numerous inquiries from families with men who had disappeared, most of the remains found on the Gunness property could not be properly identified.
While fatally struck with tuberculosis a year and a half later in prison, Ray Lamphere gave a detailed deathbed confession regarding the murders. He insisted that Belle was still alive, and that he had helped her escape by faking her death and setting the house on fire while Belle caught a train to Chicago. Lamphere stated that the headless woman’s body found in the house’s remains was that of the housekeeper who had been hired only a few days before the fire. The children’s bodies found were identified by Lamphere as to be Belle’s actual children. He admitted to helping Belle dispose of her victims, but denied helping her extort or murder them. He also claimed there was another accomplice, but offered no name.
Despite the deathbed confession, no conclusive answer has been found for the fate of Belle Gunness, although for the next twenty or so years, many people claimed to have spotted her around Chicago. A woman going by the name of Esther Carlson was arrested for murdering the man she was taking care of in Los Angeles, California, for his $2,000 bank account. Although Mrs. Carlson died in prison before her trial and before any alias could be proven, two La Porteans viewed her body in the morgue and left convinced they had seen the body of Belle Gunness.
While Belle’s fate still remains unconfirmed, her sister, Nellie, later said that “Belle was crazy for money. It was her great weakness.” I imagine the fourteen-odd victims of the Hell’s Princess would agree.
