Belle Gunness: America's Most Ruthless Female Killer

today's episode is brought to you by curiositystream curiositystream is a subscription streaming service that offers thousands of fascinating documentaries and non-fiction titles from some of the world's best filmmakers including exclusive originals no reality show nonsense here just non-fiction entertainment enjoyed by millions curiosity streams available on many platforms web app roku android xbox one smart tvs ios chromecast amazon fire amazon kindle and apple tv and it's also available worldwide now look if you like my channel since i imagine you might since you're watching it right now hello you can head over to curiositystream and check out their docu-series history by the numbers it's a very interesting series that talks about some of the people that we've covered here on biographics as well as some of the places we've talked about over on our sister channel geographics is great crossover potential you can go to curiositystream.com forward slash biographics for unlimited access to the world's top documentaries and non-fiction series and right now you guys can use the promo code biographics and you'll save 25 off the cost of an annual subscription which comes out to only 14.99 a year which is a crazy good deal so click below or go to curiositystream.combiographics and save 25 right now making it just 14.99 for the whole year and now today's video on the morning of april 28 1908 everything changed for the small city of la porte indiana during the night a fire erupted at the gunners homestead and burned the farmhouse to the grounds along with everybody in sight the charred remains of four people were recovered from the smoldering ruins one woman and three young children clearly what had happened was that bergunus the widow who owned the property had perished trying to save her children the whole town decried the loss of one of their own a heroic woman who sacrificed a life for a family the police had a more sinister idea in mind the woman's body had been found headless so unsurprisingly they suspected foul play they thought that a former farmhand named ray lamphia might be worth looking into fearing that he could have killed belle gunness and then staged the fire to hide his murderous deed even so in the minds of everyone bell gunness was still the victim here but that image would soon be shattered as investigators kept digging around the property looking for a skull one day almost a week after the blaze diggers explored a small mound of fresh earth in the pigpens and uncovered a gunny sack buried under a layer of trash inside the bag two hands two feet and one head all belonged to the same man and all had been chopped up with an axe a slow sensation of dread crept over the investigators as they realized that dozens of similar mounds were strewn across the pigpens they started digging them all up and each one yielded remains from another victim the true extent of the horror that went on at that homestead was soon apparent for years belle gunners had been using her farmhouse as the location where she killed dismembered and buried her victims all of a sudden nobody was singing her praises anymore as people saw belle gunners for what she truly was one of the most vicious murderers in the history of the united states [Music] belgiumis was born bryn hild paul's death starset on november 11 1859 in the municipality of selbu norway the daughter of paul and barrett's dorset her father worked as a stonemason and he expected all of his children to pitch in and help keep the family farm going therefore bell got used to hard work from an early age and when she got older she was hired by a wealthy family to work on their farm as well fortunately for belle she was a physically strong woman so she never shied away from annual labor since her early life is poorly documented it's a little hard to pinpoint any reason for belle gunner's murderous actions her childhood wasn't exactly a walk in the park but it wasn't please sir i want some more there is one story but it remains unverified which claims that belle got pregnant when she was 18 and that she attended a dance where she was attacked and kicked in the stomach the attack caused her to have a miscarriage and to make matters worse her assailant got off scot-free because he came from a wealthy and influential family soon afterward karma took matters into his own hands and gave the man stomach cancer but the whole ordeal left belle gunus a different woman her friends and family said that outwardly her personality and behavior changed drastically while inwardly it is possible that she started harboring a vicious resentment towards those around her as we said this might be a story but it could provide bell gunners with a motive for her killings besides the allure of easy riches either way a couple years later belle got the opportunity to move to america her older sister anna had left years earlier and married a man named john larson in chicago and started a new life in 1881 she asked belle to join her and the 22 year old woman jumped at the opportunity later that same year bell gunners left norway and made her way to chicago to live with her sister there she discovered a familiar setting full of the same traditions and culture she'd left behind because anna and her husband lived in a close-knit scandinavian community a short while later belle met a man named mad sorensen who worked as a night watchman at the department store the two got married in 1884 and had a seemingly happy marriage for the next decade and a half they had four or five children together most likely foster kids adopted from poor families but two of them did not live past infancy details on their demise are scarce it believed that they both suffered from acute colitis but the symptoms of the disease could have been caused by various poisons as well as you'll soon find out they would not be the only children to perish under belle's care so were they simply victims of an unfortunate illness or were they the first to fall prey to belle gunness's cold and callous murder spree either way gunness was able to outwardly project the image of a good wife and mother who was kind and doting on the people in her life nobody in the neighborhood suspected that something more sinister could have been lurking beneath [Music] there's not much to say about belle's marriage to sorensen one thing to mention is that the family seemed to be plagued by fires the house burned down on one occasion although nobody was injured on another occasion the candy store that the sorensens owned and operated also burned down both times the buildings were insured and the insurance companies paid out even though they suspected arsenal as a possibility some could say that this was simply a string of misfortunes and the fires were not incredibly uncommon back then others would see it for what it probably was a criminal perfecting her modus operandi the only real question here is whether or not mad sorensen was in on the scam if he was truly aware of the kind of woman he had married that he probably should have been a bit more reticent to take out large life insurance policies on himself given how much his wife liked a big juicy cash payout but in 1900 matt sorensen had a 2 000 policy that was about to expire and he already took out a new one worth even more 3 000 the new life insurance policy kicked in on the same day that the old one expired july the 30th 1900 that meant for one day and one day only mad sorensen was covered by both policies worth a cool five grand and wouldn't you know it that's exactly the day he fell mortally ill by a complete happenstance with no outside interference whatsoever his cause of death is a bit uncertain maybe a heart attack may be a cerebral hemorrhage according to gunness husband came home complaining of a terrible headache so she gave him quinine powder and he died a while later while she was in the kitchen making dinner some suspected that the pharmacist may have accidentally given gunners morphine instead of quinnine but she had thrown away the paper so nobody could check others including torrent and family even accused bell of poisoning her husband since the timing was just so damn convenient but ultimately the family doctor deemed the death natural causes and bell gunners got her insurance company to shut up the big bucks for both life policies flush with cash the new widow decided it was time to seek greener pastures perhaps by now her neighbors had begun noticing all the tragedies that kept happening to belganis and how they were always followed by insurance payouts so in 1901 she left chicago with her three remaining daughters myrtle jenny and lucy and purchased a farm on the outskirts of laporte indiana shortly after the move bell met a butcher named peter gunnis himself a recent widower the two got married in 1902 and almost immediately tragedy struck when peter's infant daughter died on the mysterious circumstances while in the care of a new stepmother peter gunnis did not have a lot of time to grieve because around a year and a half later he met his own demise when his skull was caved in by something really heavy jenny walked into the kitchen to find peter goddess slumped on the floor bleeding from his head while belle was standing over him and crying a story was that a sausage grinder topped off a high shelf and fell right onto his head and even though officials found the story a little strange ultimately they ruled peter gunnis's demise to be an accident the death was far more gruesome and violent than the others so be the bell gunners decided to mix up her killing methods to make it less obvious or there was a small teeny tiny chance that this was a genuine accident it's still probably the former though especially since peter's death came with another profitable insurance policy payout for his family even if she fooled the authorities clearly not everyone in her life believed belgurus her late husband had an older daughter named swan hild and peter's brother decided that she would be better off living with him than with belle so he took her to wisconsin and thus she became the only child in belguna's care to survive her wicked stepmother as far as we can tell the next one to go was jenny olson belle's foster child jenny started spreading rumors around school that her mama killed her papa so she had to go around 1906 she simply disappeared and everyone believed belle when she told them that jenny went to california to study at a lutheran college they wouldn't see the girl again until the police started digging up the yard of the gunness farm looking for bodies [Music] around 1905 belgium has decided that she had been widowed enough and that it was time to look for another husband victim her ideal suitor was a middle-aged norwegian man of some means who wasn't that close to his family so they wouldn't come a calling when he had inevitably went missing such prospects were a bit thin on the ground in laporte indiana so belle decided to expand her search by placing ads in the personal section of several norwegian language newspapers this is what her enticing announcement said 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 view of joining fortunes no replies by the considering lasender is willing to follow answer with personal visit triflers need not apply while we do not know the identities of all of our suitors we do know that over the next three years bell gunners engaged in a vicious killing spree that included at least 10 victims and perhaps as many as 40 according to some estimates one of them was henry gerhald a farmhand from wisconsin he answered belle's personal ad and visited her farm in laporte indiana he liked what he saw so he wrote to his family back in wisconsin telling them that he's well and that they should send him sweet potatoes afterward gerhold never contacted them again and when his family wrote to bell asking for his whereabouts she simply told them that he had gone off with horse traders to chicago another example was john moe from minnesota who went missing in 1906. sometimes some of these men didn't bring cash with them and instead they wired the money to the bank in the port in these cases gunners had to sweet talk them a bit longer until they felt comfortable enough to withdraw the money from the bank once the cash was in bell's hands the men were as good as dead poison was gunnis's preferred method of disposal afterwards she would chop up the body put the torso in one sack and the hands legs and head another and bury them on the property soon enough gunnis had amassed a nice little nest deck each prospective suitor brought at least a thousand dollars with him and some brought double or triple that by 1907 she slowed down with personal ads instead she hired a local carpenter named ray lamphia as her new farmhand and they soon became lovers however the two of them clearly disagreed over the nature of their relationship lamphia was broke and had no prospect so he was hoping that he would eventually marry garners and become a partner in the farm belgium however had no use for a man with no money and for her lampare was just a bed buddy to serve as a distraction by the end of the year she had ended things with him kicked him off the farm and resumed her personal ads [Music] allegedly lampear began harassing gunners and making threats that he would burn her house down this is what bell told her neighbors and she complained to the sheriff and even had lampara arrested for trespassing but was this a legitimate danger posed by a scorned lover or was it the plan of a devious and clever mind to use him as a scapegoat could it be that gunness's entire relationship with lamphair was to facilitate her disappearance and to turn him into the perfect patsy by early 1908 belle found another suitor and she was telling everyone that he might finally be the one he was a burly wheat farmer from south dakota named andrew helgelein and it took dozens of letters to finally persuade him to visit her in indiana once he arrived in la porte belle turned on the good old gunness charmer before long halloween was withdrawing money out of the bank so the two of them could start a new life together a few days later he was gone and bell was once again playing the part of the jilted lover who just doesn't have any luck with men this time though things went a bit differently because andrew halgerlin had a brother named alsa who was a lot more persistent than the other relatives gunness had dealt with usler didn't even know where his brother had gone but he found a stack of letters between andrew and bell gunnis kept mentioning in the letters how andrew should take all of his money out of the bank how he should sell everything and leave dakota without telling anyone what he is doing he immediately feared that his brother had been conned and to be honest the truly surprising part was that none of the other men who fell victim to gunners found it suspicious at all like the other relatives of the missing men asler helgelin wrote to bell and inquired about his brother she gave him the standard response that andrew went to chicago but this wasn't good enough asler so he packed up his bags and headed to indiana when oscar if belgonis had any idea that asla helgelin was coming her way or if she just had a feeling that laporte was getting too hot for her but on april 27th 1908 she visited a lawyer and made a will once again reiterating that she feared for her life due to raelan fear that night her house burned down seemingly killing belle gunners and her three children to nobody's surprise ray lampir was arrested the following day but it did not take long for doubts over his guilt to spring up everybody in town had heard about the gruesome circumstances of the fire and that the burned woman was missing her head at first glance that sounded like the kind of thing a man such as lampear would do out of rage but rumors soon started spreading the body was way too small to belong to the burly 200-pound bell gunness then as deputies searched through the rubble looking for the missing head they found odd things collections of men's clothes men's watches men's trunks all the sorts of things that a man would travel with but stuff that you would expect them to take with them when they cleared out the fact that they left everything behind strongly suggested that none of them ever departed the gunness farm at all a few days after the fire asla helgeland arrived in la porte and was given permission by the sheriff to check the farm for any clues to his brother's whereabouts that same day farmhands thought to dig one of the soft mounds that was scattered all over the property they found a gunny sack with the limbs and head of a man hustler took one good look and recognized the victim immediately the head belonged to his brother andrew clearly something very very bad had happened at the gunners farm but the exact circumstances were still a bit of a mystery did goddess kill and dismember halgerlin did lamphia did they do it together maybe they were some kind of killer couple who lured and murdered unsuspecting suitors for their money the answer came in a few hours but the four bodies were excavated that same day one of them was positively identified as jenny olsen a foster child who supposedly traveled to california back in 1906. obviously lam fear couldn't have had anything to do with it since it happened before he even stepped foot on the farm steadily everyone began to realize the kind of monster that belle gunness truly was the next day the nightmare got much worse as another six bodies were dug up all of them had been chopped up the same way and coupled with the lime some contained traces of strychnine while others showed signs of large gashes and blunt trauma to the head so it appears that gunnis sometimes preferred to get her hands dirty instead of letting the poison do all the work after 11 bodies were found in just two days the local police stopped keeping track of how many new victims they uncovered following the fire the sheriff hoped to avoid too much publicity surrounding the case but once the true extent of the crimes became known there was no way to prevent the murders from turning into front-page news across the country the media jumped at the opportunity the gunness property was called a death garden or a horror farm while bella self-earned monikers such as indiana ogris and the mistress of the castle of death or even female bluebeard overnight laporte indiana became murdertown usa and thousands of tourists flocked to the city each day to watch the digging take place at the most infamous farm in america all the inns motels and hotels were booked enterprising vendors sold everything from gruesome photographs skull replicas souvenirs that supposedly came from the farm and even some kind of meat concoction dubbed gonna stew many of the remains were never identified but it stands to reason that they were the men who came to laporte hoping to find a loving wife and instead found a cold calculated and merciless predator the body of a woman was dug up as was the body of a young boy but neither one was identified eventually people remembered all the suspicious deaths in belle's earlier life her two husbands and some of the children in her care and realized they should have been doing this for even longer than they imagined even with the murder spree out in the open there were two issues still left to resolve the first was reyla fear guilty of anything the state prosecutor thought he was or better yet he wanted him to be it was only the illusion of justice but officials wanted to show someone being punished in a court of law for all the murder and mayhem that went on the sheriff's department desperately tried to recover belle's skull because if she was truly dead then that meant lymphe killed her ultimately her skull was nowhere to be found but they found some gold teeth that the local dentist identified as belle's dentures based on that evidence the coroner proclaimed belgunus to be dead of fearless homicide and ray lamphia was indicted the trial itself became as much of a media circus as the murder investigation in the end neither side could prove their point beyond a shadow of a doubt so the jury reached a strange compromise they found lymphe guilty of arson but not murder he was spared the hangman's noose but it didn't make much difference lamphere fell over tuberculosis and died in prison just a year after the trial and this brings us to the second and far more interesting issue what really happened to belle gunness was she really decapitated and set on fire or did she fake her death and put the blame on ray lamphia many people believed the latter and still believe it to this day after all besides the fact that the mysterious headless body was found in our home next to her children there's no solid evidence to indicate that it belonged to bel gunnis and the fact that she visited a lawyer the same day of the fire does suggest some planning during lamphia's trial his defense attorney even produced a few witnesses who claimed to have seen bell after the fire in fact such sightings continued for years all the way from down south to the east coast to canada and even back to norway everything is suggested but nothing is conclusive officially belgonis was recorded as being killed in that fire however it is distinctly possible that she killed dozens of people stole their money and then got away with it living out the rest of her life in anonymity the true fate of belgutis just remains a mystery to this very day [Music]

Channel: Biographics

Views: 213,379

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler

Id: O5kjjUstfFc

Length: 19min 48sec (1188 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 18 2022