Ep. 100-Belle Gunness: The Farm, The Fire, And The Disappearing Suitors

A lonely hearts ad, a quiet farm, and a stack of trunks no one could explain—Belle Gunness turned hope into bait and profit into a habit. We follow her path from Norwegian winters to LaPorte, where insurance money, vanished suitors, and a farmhouse fire fused into one of true crime’s most unsettling legends. The nickname “Lady Bluebeard” wasn’t just headline flair; it captured a methodical pattern of luring men with promises of land and love, then erasing them with chilling efficiency.

We dig into the marriages shadowed by infant deaths and payouts, the mechanics of those newspaper ads, and the neighbors who accepted easy answers while men quietly disappeared. Then comes the inferno of 1908: a headless body, three children, and a set of dentures that may have launched the greatest escape theory of the era. Was that Belle in the ashes, or a decoy sacrificed to clear a path to freedom? Reports placed her in Chicago, Mississippi, even California, turning a closed case into a flickering silhouette that refuses to fade.

Beyond the lurid details lies a tougher conversation about why these stories grip us, and what our fascination costs. We talk psychology and mythmaking, how gender expectations shielded a calculated killer, and how that old lonely hearts ecosystem echoes in today’s romance scams and catfishing schemes. If trust is a currency, Belle showed how easily it can be laundered through grief, charm, and paperwork.

Press play to explore the evidence, the folklore, and the ethics of our curiosity. If this story sticks with you, share it with a friend, leave a review, and tell us your theory: did Belle burn, or did she vanish?

historicmysteries.com/belle-gunness-femme-fatale/

people.com/belle-gunness-lady-bluebeard-indiana-farm-widow-murderer-11827704
legendsofamerica.com/belle-gunness/

blog.newspapers.com/belle-gunness-murders/

flickr.com/photos/shookphotos

Transcript

Cold Opens And Southern Banter

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Before online dating before swiping there were newspaper ads lonely men seeking companionship women seeking husbands promises of love and one of those ads led straight to death. This is Hold My Sweet Tea.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

And I guess I'm Pearl. You're Pearl today? I think so. Welcome back.

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That's what my driver's license says. I guess we have to go by your government name. It's fine. It's whatever. It's another day.

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Another glorious morning. No more dollars. No. I have my extra dollars. I have my iced coffee.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

It's okay. And my VIX inhaler, because this place makes me have allergies.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

It's so weird. Yeah. Like we discussed that. I don't cough or sniffle until I get here. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Work is just gonna slowly kill us.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

It is slowly killing us. It's not going to.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

It's been doing it. Right. Maybe, you know, when this podcast just takes off. All of a sudden, out of nowhere. I know, because of all the likes and shares.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

So what what are you doing today to help increase those likes and shares?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Well, you know, we're we're a southern podcast, but occasionally we we veer off and we go somewhere else and we take a wrong turn. We we take a road trip, we travel, or or a holiday or something like

Valentine’s Day And Cuffing Season

SPEAKER_00 2:20

that's coming up. So we're like, you know what, let's pull this up. But good old Valentine's Day is is just rearing its ugly head around the corner, you know. Some people celebrate it, some people hate it, some people are like single awareness day. Yes, galantines, get your girls together, all that stuff. There's so many, so many variations. You know, when when it starts getting cold out, they call it cuffing season, and you want to partner through the holidays and then girl get a blanket. Exactly. They've got those weighted blankets, they got those things with like the the half-body arm thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah, your boyfriend pillow. Get you a boyfriend pillow and a weighted blanket, but you know, I digress.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

But by the time Valentine's rolls around, most of those cuffings and things like that just fall apart. Fall apart. Some stay, some don't. But a lot of those come from being online, you're swiping on somebody and all that stuff. So we're gonna we're gonna take it back to like way, way back in the day before before the online stuff. Do you like peanut colors? I do. Sometimes I like getting caught in the rain, but most of the time, no.

Introducing Belle Gunness

SPEAKER_00 3:42

So we're going to talk today about Belle Guinness. She was into champagne. She was. She was not into yoga. And she eventually landed in Laporte, Indiana. So Belle had gained this nickname. Oh my goodness. And the nickname was Lady Bluebeard. Um she has a beard. Yeah. And you're thinking, was she the bearded lady? Was it blue, gray? Like, what what's going on here? So I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you about the Bluebeard thing and then we'll get into Belle's story. Okay. So in French folk tale, Bluebeard was about a wealthy man who murdered his wives and hid their bodies in locked rooms. So over time, Bluebeard became shorthand for someone, usually a man, who killed their spouses. Oh. So he's a bluebeard.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

I see. So he's a bluebeard. Women are like black widows now. Yes. So, but everybody was Bluebeard back then.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Right. Okay so Belle Guinness, she got the name Lady Bluebeard because she was a woman, emphasizing, you know, that, and then committing crimes typically associated in male killers. The

Lady Bluebeard Folklore Explained

SPEAKER_00 5:20

bluebeard signaling her modus operandi, luring men into marriage or domestic situations, then murdering them for gain, much like, you know, men would do. Yeah, okay. So essentially calling her the Lady Bluebeard highlighted her as a female serial killer, but this was way before the term serial killer. But that's that's what it was. Basically, yeah. She was a lover killer. So she preyed on husbands and suitors in, you know, a shocking like inversion of the male-dominated crime narrative of that time. It also made for sensational headlines. Newspapers like love the dramatic association, which helped um, you know, her notoriety spread. Of course, and sold papers. Right. And then like front page, Lady Bluebear, you know, coming out and everything. So she was a woman who charmed her victims, stole their money, and may have killed more than a dozen people, including her own children. What the what? Yeah. So why did she kill? And most importantly, because she didn't want to work. Did she truly die in the manner that we're gonna discuss, or did she simply vanish and change her name and commit more crimes? So double mystery. Right. So we're gonna go back more than a century to uncover the dark, twisted story of Belle Guinness. So Belle was

Early Life And First Marriage

SPEAKER_00 7:00

born November 11th, 1859 in Selbu, Norway. So she's a Scorpio. So got the little darkness in there and everything, the little cunning and conniving. Um had long winters, harsh work. So Belle was like, I am made for more than this life. So she immigrated to the United States in 1881, arriving in New York, a young woman with a dream, aren't they all?

SPEAKER_01 7:34

She's a young woman with a dream of a rich husband.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

She's like, you know what? I can make something of myself in this life. Or I can make somebody else make something of me. Yeah. Because she had a determination no one could have imagined. So she eventually, a few years later in 1884, married a man named Mads Sorensen.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

What a name.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah. Mads, M-A-D-S Mads. And had children with him. But tragic tragedy like followed her. Two of her children died in infancy, and Mads himself died suddenly in 1900, under circumstances that would raise eyebrows today. Was it a coincidence or design? Don't know. She said, I'm mad about you. Mads about you. And two of her children died in infancy. Did they die? Did she do something to them? Right. So you can formulate your own opinion here as we go through this story. If a pattern of death follows you repeatedly, at what point do you suspect foul play? And could someone be clever enough to like hide it behind like grief and circumstances? Oh, you know, it was a harsh winter. I was like grieving my children, and something happened, you know, it was I forgot to take care of my husband, who obviously

LaPorte Farm And Insurance Payouts

SPEAKER_00 9:05

didn't take care of himself. So right. So Belle, after all that happened, she moved to Laporte County, Indiana. She said, I gotta go. Right. So a year later after her husband died in 1901, she married Peter Guinness, who was a widower himself. Within days, and he had children also that he brought into this marriage. He had an infant daughter that just mysteriously died about a month or so into the marriage.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

She's like, I ain't taking care of nobody's baby.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Peter himself all of a sudden died of a skull injury allegedly caused by a meat grinder that fell on his head.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

It fell. It fell on his head. Where would you be hooking up your meat grinder or or storing your meat grinder? Right. It fell off that top shelf up there, just killed him. Yeah. Like, why would no worst excuse? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

So just like her first husband, she got some life insurance money from that. So, you know, she's like, oh, my husband died, life insurance payout. Cha-chi. Right. So her farm in LaPorte was the perfect facade. It was large, secluded, had room for visitors, a place to operate undisturbed. Yeah. Right. So I don't know. It's it's just crazy. And then you start going, okay, well, back then, newspapers, you know, this was before Craigslist. Of course. Way before

Lonely Hearts Ads And Lured Suitors

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Craigslist. Men and women would place ads in the newspapers. And she would have this ad in there targeting single, wealthy men. She was just this poor widow that desired companionship. And she would put in there, you know, you must be financially sound. I have a farm. So men would arrive in the room.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

You would have to bring bring your man to the table. Like you have to outman me. Right. You have to outman me because look what I have.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

So men would arrive by train, hoping for a new start of their life. But some of those men never left. So there were some victims, including Henry Gerlholt, John Moe, and others who, you know, back then they would pack everything in like these steamer trunks and things like that, bring all of their possessions with them. Some of them remained in the farm, but they just vanished. She would have all these trunks in there, and they were like, Who does this belong to? Oh, well, they left. I don't know. They just left without their things. Without their things. They came there with all their stuff, but then they left.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

So like the next man comes in and like, whose trunk is this?

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Whose trunk is in that trunk?

unknown 12:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

So neighbors later noticed a strange number of those trunks in Bill's home. Because, I mean, back then neighbors would come and go. They would call on them and they'd be like, let's go sit out here and drink some tea on the front porch and talk about it. But they said nothing. What woman could be so alone and in need of so many borders, though?

SPEAKER_01 12:44

So And why would so many just disappear without their items?

SPEAKER_00 12:51

And you know, these these men, like if if letters from these men, like your loved ones, like suddenly stopped and just, you know, I haven't heard from Henry in months. Right. Because he was writing letters back home to his mother or something, like, is it just him being married or is it foul play? So the farm itself hit a horror. There were shallow graves in the garden beside the pig pins, bodies buried in pieces, wrapped and bound. Historians estimate at least 14 victims, but possibly more than 40. She lured to her farm with these ads in the paper. I'm like, what are you doing with all those trunks? Where are they? Where are you storing these? In the barn? Well, I mean, my thing is, is why would you not get rid of the trunks? Yeah. But she lived on a secluded farm. So nobody really said anything. Anybody that actually saw them, she was meticulous. It's like trunk souvenirs. Right. Nobody, nobody suspected a thing until the fire. And like, you know, like you were saying, like, how do you live amongst neighbors that come over and don't go, what is that?

Trunks, Neighbors, And Vanishing Men

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Why do you have seven of them? Like she would just give a like brush off a an excuse, and they were like, okay, and they just bought it. So in 1906, like this is this is a small window of time that she had all of these gentleman suitors coming in on a train and disappearing. So in 1906, Belle hired Ray Lampier. He was supposed to be a farmhand, but he was also her lover. But he doesn't have no money. He was later suspect right. He was lit later suspected in the fire that happened at the farm. So Lampier claimed that after their relationship kind of soured, Belle started plotting her own escape. She wanted to fake her death. So the farmhouse caught fire in April of 1908. And at this time, Belle had three children. So inside of this burnt farmhouse, they found three children, a headless adult woman, assumed to be Belle. Lampier said that the body was a decoy. It was a woman hired, like she had hired her to come in and help take care of the children.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Murdered her to murder her.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

She murdered her. Okay. To fake her own death. Chopped her head off. She literally took out her false teeth and placed them near the woman to look like it was her. I was like, what are you? You run around gumming it? Like, what's going on? But it makes her more attractive. But if her death was faked, how far could she have gone? Like, did she like truly vanish or was this just like a legend over time? So in April of 1908, the farmhouse was fire consumed everything, like all of it. Investigators found bodies charred beyond recognition. Then they started unearthing these graves across the property. Public fascination like exploded. I'm sure. Thousands of people were driving and coming to her farm to see the site. Oh wow. They literally were morbid. They literally had picnics out on the grounds. Oh my gosh. They were buying souvenirs. This reminds me of Ed Geen because remember, people just ascended on this place and they were just out there, like all their children running playing. Like, yeah. But you know, it's crazy to

Ray Lamphere And The Sour Affair

SPEAKER_00 17:20

me. Like, let's throw a picnic out here. There's some bones over there.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Like, what's going on? They just they just found Henry and and Ralph and Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

But like horror and spectacle kind of mingle. The victims were silent. Belle's fate unknown. But like, how does society respond to horror when it's placed right next to curiosity? And does our fascination like with murder trivialize the victims? It's it's crazy. It's a little weird little crossover there.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

It is a little weird. And I mean it here we are. True crime podcasting. It's basically the same thing. It's like why why why are we built this way? Yeah. That we're so curious. Our need to know is insanely.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

I think it because it yeah, a lot of it is the unknown. So we we want to know and we want to understand. Understand, like there is no understanding it. There really isn't. And that's why, you know, people become psychologists and mine hunters because they they're trying to figure it out. They want to get in these people's heads. Like, what would can we fix you? Was there something that happened when she moved to the United States? Like, or was it already like something in her head, that darkness and that macabre?

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Like, maybe that was her plan the whole time. She was like, Okay, I'm gonna come here and take advantage of all these men. And that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

She was like, I'm cute and foreign. Right. She's like, I can I can come there, I can get a husband. I don't like him. We'll wait, make sure he has a life insurance policy, kill him, get the money, grieve, grieving widow, you know, get somebody else to feel sorry for me and move in and take care of me.

unknown 19:18

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

So that was that was her plan. So then she's on this like farm that's that she purposely bought because it was out in the middle of nowhere, so she could do what she wanted to

The 1908 Fire And Headless Body

SPEAKER_00 19:30

do. But she was literally like, how do you you're gonna place an ad in a paper? You don't know who this man is. That's paperwork. Why would I do that? Nobody even knows you're here. Right. And that's what I'm saying. You don't know what this man looks like. Right. Who this man is, he can be lying to me.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

I mean, he could he could be doing what you're doing. Right.

unknown 19:59

And he

SPEAKER_00 20:00

He's gonna like but like back then, you know, a man's supposed to be a man, but you're gonna be like answer an ad in a paper and be like, oh, this woman's seeking a man, and I'm gonna bring all my possessions and maybe a kid or two with me, you know, and I'm gonna show up and be like, hey baby, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:19

I'm a man. Here I am, I'm here. Let's go. I'm here to rescue you. Do you have a life insurance policy?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Right. So, like, that's how she operated, and that's she got away with it for years.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Apparently, she got away with it, period. If she didn't, if she faked her death and disappeared. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

And how many of those did because she had like hogs? How many of those things did she feed to the hogs? I'm sure. Crunching munchies. And then, you know, her her farmhand slash lover, was he watching all this go on? Because he knew that she was like, Like, how long was he there? Yeah, that she was gonna fake her death. So was he there for some of this? Did he help bury the bodies?

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Or did she fake her death? Was that actually her? Did he just get pissed off because he got tired of her entertaining all these dudes and cut her head off and then set the house on fire?

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Is he covering up for himself? Maybe. And maybe he took the money, he went through the trunks, got what he wanted out of there. Before he said it all on. I was like, peace. Yeah, it exactly. Deuces, I'm out. You crazy, crazy woman. Yeah, crazy. Right. But rumors of sightings, though, spread across the US because this was sensationalized. Like it was all over everybody. Everybody's gonna know her. Um, she was seen in Chicago, she was seen in Mississippi, she was seen in California. Did she flee or did she faked her own death? Like what's happening? Or maybe she died in that fire, and then a ghost story, you know, comes up and and maybe

Graveyard Garden And Public Spectacle

SPEAKER_00 22:00

she's misidentified in the ashes. But her story lives on a cautionary tale about trust, greed, and deception. A study of female serial killers and an error where few were taken seriously, because a woman would never do that. I would never.

unknown 22:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

So it's a mystery. So yeah, that's my story on Belle Guinness and the Lady Bluebeard. Crazy, crazy. I know.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

And you know who's gonna love that one? Patty Salzetta. Yeah, she will. Yep. This goes well with her theme music she created.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

She is wonderful, but you got some opinions on this series, any of that, please message us. Hold my sweet tea podcast at gmail.com, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

All of our listening stuff. The same stuff I tell you every time. Every time. If you listen this far, you know. Yeah. Who knows? And Hold MySweet Tea, as always, is a drunk and bee production. And you guys remember to stay safe out there. Don't be bluebearding anybody. And just because we're dipping doesn't mean you can't keep sipping. Bye.