Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
One of the most prolific and, at the same time, most cruel female serial killers in criminal history was Belle Gunness, better known as ‘the Black Widow’. She was a woman standing 1.83 metres tall and weighing over 90 kilograms, who is said to have killed more than 40 people in order to enrich herself with their savings. Belle had murdered not only two of her husbands but also numerous men seeking marriage, by poisoning them with strychnine, bludgeoning them to death with a hammer, dismembering their bodies in the cellar and then burying the body parts in her cemetery behind the house. However, Belle was never brought to justice for these heinous crimes, as she was killed in a fire along with her three children – a circumstance that remains disputed to this day. This is because the cunning Belle is said to have merely faked her death, which is why a DNA analysis was carried out in 2008. But let’s take it one step at a time. Belle Gunness was born on 11 November 1859 in the Norwegian municipality of Selbu as Brynhild Paulsdatter Størset. In 1881, the daughter of a Norwegian farmer emigrated to the United States, where she settled in Chicago in 1883. Shortly afterwards, she changed her first name to Belle and, just one year later, married Mads Sorenson, a native of Norway. Together, Belle and Mads opened a patisserie in 1896, which was completely destroyed by fire a year later. With the insurance payout, the couple – who were by then parents to two children – bought a house. Shortly afterwards, their eldest daughter, Caroline, died of colitis. Two years later, her brother Axel also died of the same illness, though its symptoms – such as fever, nausea and vomiting – bore a strong resemblance to strychnine poisoning. Could this have been a coincidence, or had Belle had a hand in both deaths, especially as a substantial life insurance policy had been taken out on both children? In 1897 and 1899, Belle gave birth to two girls named Myrtle and Lucy. Just one year later, on 30 June 1900, Belle’s husband Mads died. He exhibited the characteristic symptoms of strychnine poisoning. However, his GP assumed it was a fatal heart attack, as Mads was being treated for heart disease at the time. After Mads’s death, Belle moved with her two daughters to the small town of La Porte. There, she used her late husband’s life insurance payout – a substantial sum of 8,500 dollars – to buy a farm on the outskirts of town. She met Peter Gunness, a pig farmer originally from Norway, whom Belle married on 1 April 1902. However, he died as early as December, when – of all things – a sausage machine fell from a shelf onto him and split his skull open. Shortly afterwards, Belle received a payout of $3,000 from Peter’s life insurance policy. However, his eldest daughter, Jeannie Olsen, accused Belle – who was expecting a child – of having killed Peter. In 1906, 16-year-old Jeannie Olsen suddenly disappeared from La Porte, allegedly to attend a school in California. One might well suspect foul play. In 1903, Belle gave birth to her son Philip. She repeatedly employed vagrants to work on her farm, only for them to vanish without a trace. Belle then placed marriage advertisements in which she described herself as an attractive widow with a large farm, seeking a well-to-do gentleman. Bachelors flocked to Belle in droves, their wallets bulging. Once they had deposited money into Belle’s account, they suddenly vanished into thin air. From 1906 onwards, the farm labourer Ray Lamphere worked for Belle; he was madly in love with her until she threw him off the farm because of his fits of jealousy over the marriage advertisements. Belle then told the sheriff of La Porte that she feared for her life, as she believed Ray intended to kill her. She also shared these concerns on 28 April 1908 with the lawyer M. E. Leliter, whom she had visited at his law office to draw up her will, fearing that Ray would murder her. That very same night, her farm burnt down. Belle had previously bought cans of petrol from a general store. In the rubble beneath the piano, investigators found the headless body of a woman clinging to the remains of her three children. In addition, the remains of Jeannie Olsen and other children, as well as numerous men, were found in the pigsty. Ray was subsequently arrested and claimed that Belle had merely faked her own death. According to Ray, Belle had approached a woman the previous evening, who had taken her to a bar and subsequently killed her. He had driven Belle to the railway station in Stillwell after she had set fire to the farm. However, the coroner confirmed that the headless body was Belle’s, even though she had been poisoned with strychnine days before the fire. In November 1908, Ray was charged with the murder of Belle Gunness and arson. The murder charge was quickly dropped due to insufficient evidence. Ray was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for arson. Doubts persisted as to whether Belle was actually dead. This was because, in 1931, a woman named Esther Carlson was charged in Los Angeles with allegedly poisoning August Lindström, a native of Norway, in order to gain access to his fortune. Esther Carlson’s police mugshot bore a striking resemblance to Belle Gunness. However, the small town of La Porte lacked the financial resources to send its sheriff to Los Angeles so that he could identify Esther as Belle. As Esther Carlson died of tuberculosis before the trial began, the investigations into the mistaken identity were dropped. Decades passed until, in 2008, a DNA analysis was to finally clarify whether the headless corpse was indeed Belle Gunness. A letter to the bachelor Andrew Hegelien, which Belle had sent to him in South Dakota on 13 January 1907, was intended to settle the matter. Incidentally, Hegelien had travelled to Belle shortly afterwards with $2,900 in his possession; after Belle had deposited the money into her account, he vanished without a trace. He was later found buried in Belle’s pigsty with his skull split open. However, the saliva from the envelope was insufficient to confirm whether the headless woman was Belle Gunness. To mark the 100th anniversary of the fire at Belle Gunness’s farm, memorial stones were erected in the cemetery in La Porte for the victims whom Belle Gunness had killed.
