A small town in Indiana by the name of La Porte, held a gruesome murder farm run by a Norwegian-American woman, Belle Gunness. With a population of roughly 8,184 in 1840, serial killer Gunness slaughtered a minimum of fourteen people, but the kill count could go higher. She’s known as Hell’s Belle, Indianan Ogress, La Porte Ghoul , and most noticeably Black Widow. She’s described to be a towering, heavy featured woman, with muddy stringy hair, and big handed.
Belle was raised on a farm in Selbu, Norway. Doing all things farm children must do, taking care of livestock, butchering meat, harvesting, and being a dairy maid. All of this helped her become physically strong. During her crimes she was six foot tall and 280 pounds. She was far from a fat woman, she was just buff as all hell.
As a side note, Selbu seems to magnify the Gunness family after Belle’s crimes came to light. The homestead is preserved, and the Gunness name is well known. However, La Porte has tried to move past the Gunness name, and make Belle a figment of the past.
Belle, was previously Brynhild Paulsdatter Storset, before coming to the United States to join her sister and become Belle Peterson. The voyage was ten days on rough seas, with less than fabulous conditions. Eating dry biscuits, dried fish and muddy water, with human puke in the sleeping quarters from sea sick passengers. Belle got to America, and headed for Chicago with other Scandinavian immigrants. Where conveniently another wildly interesting serial killer was residing, Mr. Henry Howard Holmes! Some think she could have been inspired by his killings. Both of them had a talent for not saying anything about their hobbies, which is how they both got away with their crimes for so long.
Belle married within a year of her immigration to Mads Ditloff Anton Sorensen, but he couldn’t provide the riches and comfort Belle wanted. He worked as a night watchmen, and didn’t bring in much more than to barely make it. Their marriage lasted ten years, and Belle desperately wanted children. It was the only thing she could talk about, and had a hellish envy of those with children. One of such people, was her sister who had five children. Belle was unable to conceive, and watched her sister pop out kids one right after another.
Belle become so fixated on one of the children, so much so that she wouldn’t let the child leave the house. Nelly ended up completely disowning Belle and moving her own family states away, leaving Belle in Chicago.
In 1891, supposedly came across a dying woman who had a child around eight months old. The woman begged Belle to save the child, and the husband overcome with grief allowed this, until years later wanted custody. In court, Belle won custody of the child named Ginny, who wasn’t biologically hers. This is where Belle discovered her deep love for fraud.
Belle and Mads ended up buying a candy store in Chicago. Business didn’t do well within the year (what child would want to buy candy from a towering angry woman ?) it seemed as if they were going to lose the business. One night where only Belle and Ginny were present, the shop caught fire and burned to the ground. Belle was able to convince the insurance investigator that the fire was caused by an exploding kerosene lamp, though there was no evidence for this. This was her first noted big crime, arson to insurance fraud leading into murder.
Within the next two years, Belle gained four more children. She claimed that they were her own, however this would mean she would have popped out two sets of twins right after one another, after nearly two decades of infertility. Some believe she stole these children, while others believe she could have bought them off poverty stricken women. Two of the children died before they were six months old, it is unknown if they died due to natural reasons or something more sinister. However, children who cross Belle’s path have a habit of losing their lives young.
The family was swindled out of $20,000 thanks to sweet old Mads efforts to make money for his wife. Mads invested in an Alaskan mining scam, and lost what little money they had. Within just days of this loss, part of Belle’s house caught on fire. Luckily it was all covered by insurance!
In 1900, and twenty years of sweet marriage to Mads, Belle’s thirst for money and murder couldn’t be contained. Mads had a life insurance policy set to expire on July 30th. He had the option of extending this policy but he instead chose to switch to a different policy with a higher payout. There was a singular day where the larger policy went into effect before the smaller had ended. In today’s value, the amount of the combined payout is $150,000. Coincidentally, this was the day Mads died. According to Belle, Mads came home from work with a horrible headache to which she gave him quinine powder. She went to go make him dinner, and when she came back he was dead. She mournfully told investigators that she thought the apothecary screwed up and gave her morphine. When investigators looked for the bottle the medicine was in, it ‘disappeared’.
She decided that moving to a farm in Indiana would greatly benefit the single mother life. The original farm was home to the founder of La Porte, John Crawford Walker. In fact, Walker owned the most land in the state, sponsored the first railroad in the Appalachian mountains, founded not only La Porte, but assisted in the foundations of Shelbyville, Greensburg, and Valparaiso as well. Both Walker and Belle are buried in the same cemetery. The house also at one point was the most well known brothel of Indiana’s at the time. Tragic. By Belle’s death, the farm would be known for something entirely different. Called by many names such as abattoirs acres, Indiana’s murder farm, Hell’s hog pit, and others, this farm was the death place for at least 14 people.
Belle remarried to Peter Gunness. He was a father of two young daughters, one of which died suddenly after the marriage. Within eight months of marriage, Peter died from trauma to the head. Belle explained he was reaching for something on a top shelf, and a meat grinder fell on his head. The coroner, Dr. Bowels, believed his death to be murder. Belle, the master manipulator, convinced everyone it was all a horrible accident. Luckily for Belle, La Porte was rife with crime. Within the same week of poor Peter’s death, six others were killed in various other crimes committed by others. So Peter’s case was closed.
Gunness worked her hog farm alone and realized she needed help in all the daily chores as she had to mother her last three living children. She killed and butchered hogs alone, along with caring for cows. Cows often broke through the fence lines, and pissed off her neighbors. Eventually the neighbor kept the cows, and Gunness threatened the neighbor with a rifle to the face. She soon realized she needed help. She hired Olaf Aleksander. He came from Norway as well. He sent written letters to family about possibly marrying Belle. Within two months the letters altogether stopped. Belle told his family that he went to the World Fair. The pattern followed with Kris Kristofferson. He also disappeared with four months of being a farm hand to Belle. Then Belle began putting ads in newspapers for farmhands, which according to the post office earned her at least ten letters in response a day. What a woman. Sometime in this string of men, Ginny up and left for college in California, as Belle told everyone. Later her remains were found on the farm.
Ray Lamphere
Ray Lamphere, was hired soon after a large string of men disappeared. The impressionable young man fell deeply in love with Belle. The only man to survive living with Belle. Ray was born and raised in Indiana, a first for Belle. He was a town drunkard who was known to spend most of his money gambling. Quickly the two had relations. But Lamphere’s happiness came crashing down due to the appearance of Norwegian man Andrew Helgelien. Belle had written Helgelien a record seventy two letters begging him to come live with her. She instructed him not to tell anyone where he was going, why he was going, and to come alone. For some reason, he did. He died, surprise! However prior to his death, Belle tossed good old Ray to the side and fixated on Helgelien. Ray worked on the farm, while Belle played lovebirds with Helglien. On January 14th, Helgelien’s money disappeared from his bank, and later that day he was killed. His body had the most brutal wounds of all bodies found on the farm.
Helgelien’s family not having heard from him for weeks, started searching through his things. His brother, Aezel found the letters between Andrew and Belle. He wrote Belle demanding to know where his brother was. She bullshitted, saying he’d moved to Chicago and abandoned her. All the while Ray was being the crazy ex-boyfriend, trying to stalk Belle, watching her, and trying to live with her again. She got caught in months of legal fights with Ray. At somepoint, the issues suddenly stopped. At this point records of Belle get hazy. Belle made a comment about Ray being more than capable of killing her, her children and burning down her farm.
On April 27th, her daughters went to school in distress. They had been beat by their mother because they had attempted to go into the cellar. The next day, Belle went to her lawyer, Melvin E. Leliter saying that Ray was going to burn down her house. This wanted her to write a will. She only addressed three of her four children, leaving Ginny out of it. Leaving her lawyer’s office, she went and bought groceries including two gallons of kerosene. Later that night, the Gunness farm burned to the ground. Investigators determined that the fire was man-made. Bodies were later discovered, of the children. It appeared that Belle had covered them with a blanket before the fire began. The body assumed to be Belle Gunness, was missing the head.
La Porte law enforcement set their sights on Ray. However, he had an alibi for the night. He was with a woman all night, Elizabeth Smith, an African American woman. Due to her ethnicity, the alibi made the target on Ray’s back even larger. However there was no evidence to convict him. Days later, Aezel Helgelein was still searching for his brother and came to America to find the ruins of the Gunness farm. He questioned Law Enforcement, to see if they had dug anywhere in the farm. With Aezel’s help, they did, and found the fourteen corpses on the farm. The bones of Belle’s daughter Ginny were in a box buried on the farm.
Her victims were all killed brutally. Women, especially black widows, typically kill by poison. Belle however killed with undiluted anger. She beat them, or hacked them into parts. Many had small traces of arsenic in there system, coroners believed to slow them down. Many skulls found had deep cleavages in the skull. Often they were buried in the hog pits wrapped in burlap and covered in Quicklime. Even her daughter, Ginny, was hacked and buried in the hog pit. Some were her buried in Belle’s private outhouse.
Sources & Extra Reading John Crawford Walker Hell’s Princess: Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men by Harold Schecter Belle Gunness: the Lady Bluebeard by Janet L. Langlois Podcast: The Last Podcast on the Left
Musing Murder Mysteries 