The History of Murder
Some murders changed history. Some happened because of it. The History of Murder puts crimes in context - using interviews with historians, actors reading the actual words of those involved, and narration that brings it together for a compelling story in each episode.
The History of Murder
The Bride of Blood: The Story of Belle Gunness
If you want love, you might advertise. That was certainly true in 1908 La Porte, Indiana when a Norwegian immigrant went looking for a mate in the newspaper’s Lonely-Hearts section. But it didn’t lead to love, it led to murder – and lots of it.
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Executive Producer- Clare O'Donohue
Executive Producer - Margaret Smith
Senior Editor - Steph Kelly
Social Media Manager & Design - Mikayla Bogus
https://mikayladesign.cargo.site/
IT Manager - Conor Sweeney
Marketing Consultant- Patrick Hackett
The History of Murder Logo - Bernadette Carr
Theme Song “My Carnal Life I Will Lay Down” - Rob Brereton
Bruce Johnson & the LaPorte County Historical Society
La Porte County Historical Society Museum
David Johnson & the Norske Museum
Norwegian Landscape photo
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Chicago History Museum Photo Archive
Voice of Belle Gunness - Ragnhild Swanson
Voice of Nellie Larson - Anna Öjdahl Sweeney
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Clare (00:01.773)
La Porte, Indiana, 1908. A quiet farming community is woken up in the middle of the night because a farmhouse is ablaze. By morning, the residents, a widow and her three children, were found dead inside, and blame would be cast on a man that the widow had invited into her home and her bed. But it wasn't that simple. Not only were there quickly questions about the identity of one of the victims,
But there was a discovery that changed the entire investigation. And it could all be traced back to the match.com of the early 20th century. It's the History of Murder, and I'm your host, Clare O'Donohue.
Clare (01:03.246)
In November 1901, a 42-year-old widow, Belle Sorensen, and her three children moved to a farm in La Porta de Ñana. The farm had quite a reputation. A previous owner, B.R. Carr, once a successful merchant, had abandoned the farm, leaving behind unpaid debt. His son, Heil Carr, would be shot to death while trying to rob a bank in Denver. Later, the farm was sold to a woman named Maddie, who turned it into a poorhouse.
Those scandals were nothing compared to the one that would be associated with the widow. Belle Sorensen was born Breinhild Pahlstedter Sorse in Selbu, Norway on November 11th, 1859. She was the youngest of eight children. Her father was a sharecropper and stonemason. They were so poor that her father applied for public assistance to feed his large family.
According to La Porte County historian Bruce Johnson, there was little chance for upward mobility for Bell's family.
Bruce
Back that time, there were wealthy landowners who owned all the property. And you had tenant farmers that lived on these farms who did the work. You didn't have any opportunity to ever own your own land. All the children were expected to contribute. For young Brinehill, that meant chores on the farm and in the house. In the evening, she would sit by the fire and knit the famed Selbu Mittens.
Clare
It was not exactly an exciting life, but it was typical for the children of her time and place. What was not typical was a rumor that existed in town. At 17, the story goes, Brunhilde was pregnant. The father, a wealthy landowner, didn't want to marry her. In fact, he beat her so severely she miscarried. Soon after, he died. His symptoms, nausea, vomiting, changes in heart rhythm among them, sounded very much like arsenic poisoning. Of course, that story can't be proven. There's no evidence left behind. There's just people talking, maybe exaggerating.
Bruce
I do know that later on when all the murders took place, people would say bad things about her, mainly because they didn't want to be identified with her as a good person.
Clare (03:22.062)
What we do know is that in 1881, 22-year-old Brunhilde emigrated to the United States. David Johnson, the president of the Norsk Museum in Sheridan, Illinois, says that Belle was one of many.
David
In Norway, they felt like you didn't own the land, you didn't have rights either. And so this started the great migration to America. During the next 80 years, 25 % of Norway came to resettle in America.
Clare
They immigrated mainly to the Midwest, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois.
David
They went to Chicago, the great melting pot. There was Norwegian Neighborhoods. In fact, in the 1890s, think, Cook County had the second largest Norwegian American population in America.
Clare
One of those immigrants, Brunhilde, came to Chicago because her sister Olina was living there. According to La Porte County historian Bruce Johnson.
Bruce
She and her husband, John Larson, helped pay part of Bell's way to get over here.
Clare
Olina, 10 years older, had invited Brunhilde to live with her and her husband in Chicago. Olina changed her name to the more American sounding Nellie. And Brunehilde did the same, first changing it to Bella, then Belle.
Bruce
My understanding is that she was a servant girl for a while.Young girls like that just work for wealthier families. That's about all there was to do.
Clare
Most of her wages were turned over to her brother-in-law to pay for her room and board. According to her sister, it wasn't the life Bell had imagined for herself.
Nellie
My sister was insane on the subject of money. She never seemed to care for a man for his own self, only for the money or the luxury he was able to give her.
Clare
Belle soon found that man, Mad Sorensen, a fellow Norwegian about five years her senior, he was by all accounts a very kind man. There's only one photo of him and he looks solid with a handlebar mustache and clear, direct eyes.
Bruce
He was a security guard, a nighttime security guard at Mandel Brothers Department Store in downtown Chicago.
Clare
It was one of the city's largest and most prosperous department stores and lasted until 1960.(05:41.614) For Mads, it was a good job and clearly had long-term prospects in 1881. But it wasn't enough for Bell. Ten years after their marriage, the Sorensen's bought a small candy store on Grand Avenue. How they came up with the money on Mads' $15-a-week wages, around $520 now, we don't know. We do know the store was kind of a newspaper slash corner grocery store with magazines, candy, tobacco, and other items for sale. It was in a busy area of the city with lots of foot traffic, but for whatever reason, it wasn't doing well. But that frustrating news was likely small compared to Belle's failure to conceive a child. Her sister Nellie, mother of five, would say that Belle adored children, especially Nellie's daughter Olga, and was desperate for one of her own. When Olga was four, demanded Nellie turn over the girl for her to raise. To which her sister said, no.
Nellie
I refused to let her adopt my little daughter. And from that day, my sister would hardly speak to me.
Clare
Belle began fostering children. And in 1891, she took in a little girl named Jenny.
Bruce
Jenny's mother died eight months after Jenny was born. And they already had three children in that family. And her father worked as a Norwegian maritime service and he was on board ship a lot of the time. He knew that and Mads took in foster children. So asked if they would be able to help him out and take care of little Jenny. So they did.
Clare
According to the girl's father, he turned the child over to Mads and Bell, not to adopt, but to foster. Several years later, the father would try to get Jenny back. But the court sided with Bell and Mads. She had a family, she had a home, she had stability. They felt she was better off where she was. Jenny was only three when she and Belle ran outside the Sorensen's convenience store. The store was on fire. By the time it was put out, the interior was completely destroyed. The cause, Belle claimed, was a faulty kerosene lamp. There was no evidence of the claim, but there was no proof that it was arson either.
Clare (07:59.01)
The Sorensen's were now free of their failing store, had recouped their investment, and had a little girl to raise. Mads and Bell moved to Austin. At the time, this now-neighborhood on Chicago's west side was a suburb. They used the insurance money to buy a three-story house and took in more children. They were raising five, four girls, including Jenny, and a boy. Two of the children died as infants, the little boy Axel at three months and a girl, Caroline, at five months. By 1900, Mads, who had worked for the railroad for the last few years, returned to his old higher paying job as a night watchman for Mandel Brothers. But his wife still saw dollar signs much higher than his salary. And she was about to see that particular dream come true.
First, their home went up in flames, causing about $650 in damage, or $25,000 today. Luckily, they were insured. And then just three months later, Mads, only 45, died. Officially, it was a cerebral hemorrhage. He was also insured. He was really, really insured. Mads had a $2,000 life insurance policy he intended to let lapse, and had taken out a $3,000 policy to replace it.
Bruce
There had to be one day where the two overlapped and it just so happened that particular day, she said he came home from work, wasn't feeling well and he laid down and she gave him some medicine. But she thinks maybe the pharmacist gave her the wrong thing because he died. From that one day, the two policies overlapped.
Clare
Belle collected on both. $187,000 in today's money. Combined with the money she'd received from the house, she was suddenly worth the equivalent of over $200,000. On the day of the funeral, Belle's sister Nellie put the feud aside and came to say goodbye to her brother-in-law.
Nellie
While I was there, a terrible feeling came over me. I felt just like something was going to happen.
Clare
Her prediction would come true.
Clare (10:10.186)
After the death of her husband, took her three surviving children and moved to La Porte, Indiana.
Bruce
La Porte was a thriving community with lot of manufacturing going on and a of businesses and a wonderful location here by the lakes.
Clare
One thing La Porte lacked was a Norwegian population. Belle was one of the few who lived there.
Bruce
There were a couple of Danish people and a couple of Norwegians, but very few. was almost entirely Swedish.
Clare
Working a farm is hard enough, but for a woman with young children in 1901, it was incredibly difficult. Belle soon decided she needed a husband to help, and she wanted a fellow Norwegian. She reached outside of La Porte and reacquainted herself with Peter Gunness. Peter was from Oslo originally, but he had emigrated to the United States in 1885, first settling with his brother Gust in Minneapolis, then moving to Chicago in 1893. It was in Chicago that he met Belle. He was briefly a lodger in the home that she shared with her husband, Mads. But soon he returned to Minnesota and married. His wife died in 1901, leaving him with two daughters, Svanheld, age four, and Lydia, a newborn.
Bruce
When she heard that his wife had passed away, she contacted him right away to come and visit her and bring the children to the port.
Clare
Belle had briefly visited Minneapolis before moving to Indiana, and she Peter must have shared their recent losses, as well as now being single parents to very young children. That may have been enough to bond the two because, to friends and family, they seemed an unlikely pair. Peter was 13 years Bell's junior. In the words of one of his contemporaries, he was a blonde, blue-eyed quote, Viking of a man, unquote. Bell, on the other hand, was tall. Some records put her at six feet, but quite unattractive. She had been described, and I'm quoting now, as a fat, heavy-featured woman with a big head and a gross body. And as she had been described by those who knew her in Norway as, quote, capricious and extremely malicious, unquote, she didn't seem to have a great personality either. But she did have a 48-acre farm in Indiana.
Bruce (12:28.906)
After a month they decided to go ahead and get married. And then just within days after they got married, his youngest little girl, who was just an infant at that time, died in Bell's care.
Clare
And by the end of the year, there would be another tragedy. On December 16th, young Jenny, now 12, had gone to the neighbors for help. There had been a terrible accident, she told them. When they arrived at the Gunness Farm, the neighbors found Peter dead. Belle was hysterical.
Bruce
She said that he was getting his shoes. They were keeping warm there by the stove. And she said that he bumped the stove where she was boiling some water for brine and it scalded him on his neck. And also bumped the shelf above him that had a sausage grinder on it. It fell and hit his head.
Clare
There were suspicions. There was even an inquest. Belle testified that she had been using the meat grinder earlier, then washed it and put it on the shelf. At about 11 p.m., she and Peter were ready to go to bed, and it was his custom to make sure the doors were locked. So he went into the kitchen while Belle stayed in the living room. She would tell the court what happened next.
Belle
I heard him make some little noise out there and he always put his shoes to the back of the stove to warm and I guess he must have been back to get hold with their shoes. And all at once I heard a terrible noise and I dropped my paper and left. Belle testified that Peter had gotten blisters from a pan of stock that had spilled on him. That, for both of them, was the bigger worry than the meat grinder that had fallen on his head. But by morning, it was the head injury that killed him. When young Jenny testified, she gave the same story.
Clare (14:24.834)
To many in the courtroom that day, it seemed rehearsed, but Jenny denied that she had been coached by her mother. The medical examiner testified that Peter had a fractured skull and a broken nose. Hearing about the serious injuries, those in the courtroom wondered how Bell's version could be true. How could Peter have been more bothered by the blisters than his head injury? Why had he not sought medical attention? And could a meat grinder falling from a shelf really cause so much damage?
The coroner was suspicious of Peter's death. Everyone was suspicious, but there was no direct evidence. So the death was ruled accidental. There were whispers, but Bell ignored them. Sometime in early 1903, Peter's brother, Gust, left his home in Janesville, Wisconsin to visit Belle. He was openly concerned about the death of his brother and his infant niece, Lydia, in the short time they'd lived in La Porte.
Bruce
He's got Swanhild's next. I've got to get her out of that house.
Clare
Peter had taken out a $2,500 life insurance policy, but the beneficiary was not Bell. It was his now five-year-old daughter, Svanhild. What Gust found when he arrived was that the insurance was gone. It was nothing for Svanhild. Bell claimed Peter had cashed it in and bought stocks, but she offered no proof. She did offer to let Gust stay on and help her run the farm. He declined. In fact, days later, Bell woke up to find both Gust and Svaneild gone. Thankfully, in the middle of the night, he had taken his niece and left.
Clare (16:10.606)
Belle had some good news. She had a new little boy named Philip. Where did that little boy come from? The neighbor said she was never pregnant.
Bruce
She said, well, yeah, I had this little boy. And they questioned her about how could you get back to working so physically? And she's all, well, Norwegian woman strong like bull.
Clare
But Belle was back to her original problem. She had a large farm to run and needed a man to help her. She placed an ad, a help wanted ad, in a Norwegian language newspaper. David Johnson of the Norsk Museum in Sheridan, Illinois, says that most Norwegian immigrants would have gotten their news from one of the several papers that were printed well into the 1940s. But they would also get more than the news.
David
Everybody wants to, you know, would relate to somebody that shares a common history or national, you know, language and such.
Clare
Olaf Limbo, 30, was one person who hoped to connect. He packed all his worldly goods and came from Chicago to La Porte. Within months, he appeared to be more than a farmhand. Neighbors would comment on the unusually close relationship he had with Belle. And he even wrote to his father back in Norway to tell him that he would be married soon. But shortly after that, he was gone. told people different stories about his absence. He'd returned to Norway, he'd gone to St. Louis to see the World's Fair, and he'd gone west to take up a homestead. For his father and friends, it was confusing. It was very unlike Olaf to be out of touch for so long, but from so far away, there was nothing any of them could do. Belle placed another ad, and another man answered it. Henry Gerhold also showed up with all his worldly goods and had been warmly welcomed by the widow. Again, there were whispers about their relationship, and again, within a few months, he disappeared. This time Belle told people he couldn't handle the heavy labor of farm life and had left. But to some, it seemed odd that most of his belongings stayed behind. By mid-1905, Belle placed another ad. This one wasn't a help wanted ad. It was much more direct.
Belle (18:31.502)
A woman who owns a beautifully located located and well-divided farm in first class condition wants a good and reliable man as a partner in same. Some little cash is required and will determine first class security.
David
You had to follow her rules, sell everything you own, bring only cash, sew on your underwear for safety because they would be coming on the train and then we don't want anybody robbing you on the train. And then don't tell anybody anything. It's just a secret between the two of us. Those are her rules.
Clare
Her ads got quite the response. George Berry left his home in central Illinois with nearly $54,000 in today's money. He told his friends he was moving, quote, for a job and possibly marriage, unquote. Emile Tell quit his job in Kansas telling his friends he was, quote, to marry a rich widow, unquote. And old Bundsburg sold his Wisconsin farm to his sons, saying he was taking his money and going to La Porte to get married. I could go on.
Bruce
The majority of these men were recently immigrated from Norway. They didn't have any family here. They were using younger men or widowers. So they were on their own and thought, this might be a good opportunity.
Clare
According to a farmhand Belle hired, men arrived nearly every week. She introduced them as cousins who would come for a visit, but none of the visits lasted more than a few days. And most of the men left their luggage behind when they disappeared. By 1906, the girl Bell had fostered, Jenny, was 16. She was beautiful and attracted a lot of male attention. And one day, she was gone. Bell told one of the farmhands that she'd gone to a school out west, but it was frustrating for him and many of the other young men in town that she'd left without saying goodbye. One particular young man, John Wiedner, had a budding relationship with the girl and couldn't understand why she'd left and didn't tell him. He even wrote several letters to Jenny at the address Belle provided.(20:54.274) but never got a response. eventually told John she'd explained to Jenny that he'd gotten married, which wasn't true. His brother had gotten married, not him. John was heartbroken that a misunderstanding was keeping them apart.
Clare (21:12.778)
Around the time of Jenny's disappearance, one of Belle's ads drew a response from Andrew Hallgellan. His letters do not exist, but her letters to him were kept, and there were more than 70.
Belle
Dear friend, you impressed me with being a good man with a strong and honest character and real genuine Norwegian in every sense.
Bruce
Andrew Hallgellan had come over from Norway and settled in near Aberdeen, South Dakota. His brother had already settled there and they had farms close to each other. His brother, Asle, had been married and had a family and Andrew was not.
Clare
Like the other men, Andrew had found Bill's ad in Norwegian language newspapers. But unlike the others, he played hard to get. Something had made him cautious. Maybe it was the fact that he was an ex-felon, having spent 10 years in prison for robbing a post office in Minnesota. Or maybe it was Bell's letters, which were later called, quote, the work of an ignorant person, unquote. She lacked a formal education, and even in her native language, her grammar, punctuation, and handwriting were described as crude. But she did offer something likely more important to Andrew, herself.
Belle
I do not think a queen could be good enough for you. And in my thoughts, you stand highest above all high. And I will not let anything stand in the way of my doing anything for you."
Clare
And she offered her farm. Bell had described it as 74 acres, which was almost twice its actual size. She wrote that it was worth between $12,000 and $14,000, about $500,000 today. But she made clear that she expected him to invest in the place. And she wanted it in cash.
Belle
Take all your money out of the bank and come as soon as possible.
Clare
She also had one more request.
Belle
Do not say anything about coming here. It is so much pleasure to keep this secret to ourselves and to see how surprised everyone will be when they find out.
Bruce
So he broke those rules. First of all, he told his brother he was going to Indiana to visit this woman and be back.(23:37.012)And he didn't bring any money because he wanted to see what it was like first.
Clare
It took about a year and a half before Andrew was convinced to travel to La Porte. But in January 1908, he arrived on Belle's door. Within days of his arrival, Belle took him to the First National Bank of La Porte. He had some certificates of deposit that she wanted him to cash. The teller told them it would take several days before the funds would be available. And as the teller later testified, Belle was not pleased. Within a few days, the pair did return to the bank for the money, the equivalent of almost $100,000 now.
Bruce
It's strange because Belle wanted it all in cash. The banker and Andrew both said, well, why don't we leave some of it in the bank for safety? And she says, no, I want it all in cash.
Clare (24:29.59)
It was the last time anyone saw Andrew. But it was not the last time his name came up.
Clare (24:39.394)
Within a few weeks of Andrew arriving in La Porte, Belle got a letter from his brother Asle asking about him. Andrew had originally said he'd visit La Porte and then return home, but he hadn't returned. Andrew had told his brother he'd be visiting a woman in Indiana, but hadn't given more specific information. However, he had left a pile of love letters behind in his home in South Dakota, and all of them contained Belle's name and address.
Bruce
You wrote to asking my brother said he was going to go visit you but he hasn't come home yet it's been several weeks. Is he still there has he left you know thing about him. I would have would not have written back. But she did. And that was the beginning of her downfall.
Clare
The letter that arrived from Andrew's brother was met with a curt response from Belle. She had no idea where he was, as he'd only stayed an hour. She assumed he'd returned home. But Asle wasn't put off that easily. In March, he wrote again. And this time, the story was that Andrew had gone in search of a third brother. This is all I can say to you about the matter.
Belle
I have wasted three years for them every day. Asle wasn't Belle's only problem. One of her farmhands, Ray Lamphere, was either fired or quit around this time. It was either because Belle refused to pay him what he had earned or because he was trouble.
Bruce
Her hired man lived in a room upstairs above the kitchen. And if he was in bed at night, she would come in during the night and jump in the bed with him. thought, hey, there's just a good arrangement here.
Belle
But after a few months of being Belle's farmhand and lover, she had a new role she wanted him to play. Asle Helgeland kept threatening to come to La Porte more and more. I think she had to come up with a scapegoat and come up with some plan for her to get out of the situation. And she decided to use Ray.
Clare
First, she kicked him out of the bedroom in her house and moved him to the bar. And soon after, either by his choice or hers,(26:48.3) He was no longer employed at the farm. consulted an attorney about his back wages and about his property, tools, and clothes that had been left on the farm. Belle went another way. She told the sheriff Ray was stalking her.
Bruce
She had him arrested four times. And one time she had him arrested because she thought he was insane. Well, they couldn't find anything that he really had done wrong. And they even tested him and said, well, he's a little slow, maybe, but he's not crazy.
Clare
Ray was a native of La Porte who had come from a once respectable family that had been done in by Ray's father's fondness for alcohol. Ray, who also liked to drink, spent his money on liquor, women, and gambling. By 37, he was almost a vagrant. He did have talents. He was a skilled carpenter. And that appears to have been the reason Belle hired him for work on the farm. Belle's accusation that Ray was insane went nowhere. However, she did get him for stalking or in 1908 parlance trespassing. That went to trial and he was found guilty and fined $5, about $170 now. A week after the trial, she had him arrested again for trespassing. This time though, Ray was acquitted. He had witnesses that could police him six miles away at the time that Belle said he was at her house. Not that this stopped Bell from telling anyone who would listen that Ray was causing trouble and she was afraid for herself and the children. And just as Belle wasn't done with Ray, Andrew's brother Asle wasn't letting up either.
Bruce
He got a picture of his brother and sent copies of it to the First National Bank in La Porte, to the county sheriff, and to the city police department. And asked them, do you recognize this man? This is my brother. He hasn't come home.
The first actual bank said, yes, we remember him because we remember the day they came and cashed the check. We tried to convince her to put some of the money in the bank account. She didn't want to. So yes, we remember when they were here.
Clare
Asle wrote to Belle again and told her he would visit and involve the police. Bell responded that he was welcome to visit, but she wasn't sure what more could be done to find Andrew.
Bruce
Thanks, the Lord, for Asle Helgolin. He's the great hero of this whole story.(29:10.668) He followed up. On April 27, 1908, updated her will, leaving everything to her three foster children, although interestingly, not Jenny. And in the event of her children's death, her estate would pass to the Norwegian Children's Home of Chicago. She then purchased some candy she said was a treat for the kids, as well as two gallons of kerosene. As she was making her purchases,
Ray entered the store and, according to witnesses, glared at her, followed her outside, and watched as she left.
Bruce
She went home, fixed a nice meal, with for her the children and for Joe Maxson, who was her new hired man. And they sang songs at the piano and played some games. And then it was time to go to bed. And she gave them each an orange before they went to bed. Well, Joe didn't like oranges, but he took a little bite anyway, just to please her.
Clare (30:18.67)
Joe Maxson said that all was normal at dinner that evening. He did report going to bed early because he was unusually tired but thought nothing was going on. Until he was woken up by a burning smell at around four in the morning. He realized the house was on fire and smoke was filling his room.
Bruce
So he grabbed some of his belongings, got out the back door and neighbors were running down the street. They're trying to wake up the family, but the doors were all locked. And they tried going up to the top floor on the ladder to look in the windows and if they could find the family in the bedrooms, nobody. And so they said, we better get the fire department.
Clare
Joe jumped on his horse and raced into town to raise the alarm. There were cars then, so people in cars and on horses raced to the scene. Everyone wanted to do something, but there was nothing to be done. The house was engulfed.
By the time it was safe to enter, it was too late. The bodies of a woman and her three children were found huddled together, killed by the fire and smoke.
Bruce
Everybody felt terrible. All these people are gathering around thinking, poor Belle and these children in this fire.
Clare
There was one odd detail. The woman who was the most severely burned was headless. Harry Bird Darling, the editor of the La Porte Argus newspaper, said the head was likely missing, quote, by the ruthless and torturous flames. The diggers in the ruins have yet to find the skull, for this would be all that remained of the missing head.
Clare (32:03.606)
Darling painted Belle as the picture of heroism. Quote, she died in a heroic but futile effort to save her offspring,
Bruce
Immediately when the fire happened, they thought it's Ray. He's been causing trouble for her. He probably did it.
Clare
Ray was immediately arrested, but he had an alibi. He was with Elizabeth Smith, he said, a black woman in her seventies. She confirmed that he had spent the night. His employer said that he had arrived early in the morning as usual to begin work. But that didn't matter. Ray was painted as a maniac who was angry he lost his job or jealous that Belle had thrown him over for other men or was, as Belle had once claimed, insane. Ray was held in jail while the investigation was underway. Autopsies were performed and the damage done to the woman's body, her headless body, was gruesome. Her left arm was also missing and her right arm and both legs were missing sections.
Clare (33:10.86)
all of that, along with the head, made it impossible to know for sure that it was Belle. Though Nellie and Nellie's son John did arrive in La Porte to attempt an identification. Jenny's biological sister also came to find out if Jenny was there. The sisters had kept up a correspondence for years, although she hadn't heard from Jenny since the younger girl went out west. Then a third person came and his presence changed everything.
Bruce
The newspapers had front page headlines, big articles, all about the fire at Belle Gunness' farm. The first national bank thought that Asle Helgolin should know about this. So they sent a copy of the newspaper to Asle Helgolin in South Dakota. And that's when it all started.
Clare
Asle had immediately gotten on a train for Indiana. And once he arrived in La Porte, he went straight to the sheriff's office. The sheriff took Osley to the Gunnett's farm, and they talked to the farmhand, Joe Maxson.
Bruce
So he went to Joe Maxson and said, do you bury stuff on the property? Because they didn't have a service that comes and pick up your garbage and take it away. At that time, you buried it on your property.
Clare
Asle wanted to know where garbage had been buried in the spring when Andrew went missing. Maxson showed him the spot. So we went over to that spot there on the farm and dug up that area and pulled out the gutty sack with the garbage in it. There was tin cans, fish bones, chicken heads. And then they started to pull out an arm and a leg and body parts.
Clare
They had found Asle's brother, Andrew.
Bruce (35:04.354)
Sheriff says, let's keep digging.
Clare
More bodies or parts of bodies were found. And so more holes were dug and more bodies kept being found. There was at least one woman. She was young, had long blonde hair and had been chopped into half a dozen pieces. She was quickly identified as Jenny Olson.
Bruce
It was the day of her 18th birthday, the day that her body was discovered in the farm.
Clare
Newspapers from all over the country swarmed to report as did onlookers.
Bruce
They think there was many as between 10,000 and 15,000 people from all over the United States who were coming to the farm to watch all this digging. They're taking photos out there. It's just like today, you're taking selfies wherever you go while they were doing that back then as well. They wanted to show that they were there at this farm, making news around the world and picking up any little thing as a souvenir. They started carving their names on all the farm buildings and where they were from.
Clare
Hotels were booked. Restaurants were at full capacity. And locals were hiring themselves out as essentially Uber drivers, bringing people from the train to the farm. The train from Chicago had to put on extra cars to hold the people who packed a picnic, brought their kids, and watched as the gruesome task of going through the evidence at the Gunness Farm continued. The town was doing booming tourist business. But among those who arrived in La Porte were the family members of men who had answered Belle's lonely hearts ads and then disappeared. They must have watched the party atmosphere created by the visitors. And that likely made it harder as they waited for the grim news that their loved ones were among the dead and then they had to make arrangements to bring them home for burial.
Bruce
Olaf Budsberg had come from Wisconsin and his two sons and then a friend of their father's. The three men came down to see if they could identify their father's body and they did. Others came down as well, but there weren't that many that were identified just to few them. Some of them were identified, were taken back to their homes to be buried, but the rest of the victims stayed here.
Clare (37:21.976)
There were 11 bodies found on the farm, including Jenny and Andrew. But that wasn't all of Bell's victims. People began talking once again about Peter Gunness's odd death and about the death of Belle's first husband, Mads, and about the deaths of multiple children in her care. And the body of the headless woman found after the fire? Almost no one thought that was Belle.She was several inches shorter and considerably thinner than the six foot three hundred pounds Belle was said to be. She was, people said, another victim. Locals talked about a woman they'd seen in town just a few days before the fire, a stranger who had disappeared.
Bruce
I have a feeling she may have injected some arsenic and strychnine somehow in the oranges, if that's possible, because the children had all been poisoned.
Clare
Joe, the sole survivor of that night, had not eaten the orange, but had only taken one bite, then thrown his way. Belle, of course, wouldn't have known that Joe didn't finish his treat. He was in his room. So when everyone was in a drug-induced sleep, the theory went, Belle had cut the head and arms off the woman to make her unidentifiable. Then she posed her with the sleeping children and left them all to die in the fire.
The one person who seemed not caught up in the Belle set the fire theory was prosecutor Ralph Smith. He was determined to try Ray Lamphere on charges of arson and murder and as an accessory in the death of Andrew Hoglund. At the trial, Smith told the jury he was not going to defend Belle, nor would he drag her down. He made clear despite what theories were floating around, he knew who had killed Belle and the children. He said, we will produce witnesses to prove that Lamphere was seen around the Gunness house before the fire broke out and that he was seen running away, unquote. Ray admitted he passed by the Gunness farm on his way to work the morning of the blaze, had seen the smoke, and not raised the alarm. But he was steadfast in declaring his innocence. Smith pointed to items that Ray owned, a coat, a watch, some clothes (39:41.868) that had once belonged to the men buried on the farm. said they were gifts from Bell, but to Smith, they were proof that he was involved. On November 26, 1908, Ray Lamphere was found guilty of arson, but not murder. It is, to be frank, an odd judgment. The jury found that while Ray set the fire, he wasn't guilty of the deaths of the children who died as a result of the fire.
Bruce
It didn't make any sense. I know he didn't do it. There's no way.
Clare
He was sent to prison in Michigan City, Indiana, where he died of tuberculosis the following year. Despite hopes from authorities that he might confess some involvement in the crime, he maintained his innocence until the end. His grave went unmarked until 2015, when proceeds from a book on the case were used to pay for a headstone. The body of the woman who died in the fire was transferred back to Chicago and buried in a cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois. There was no funeral, no headstone, and no one in Belle's family was there when the body was interred. In the years that followed, there were sightings of a woman who matched Belle's description, even arrests. But no one was proved to be her.
The body of the woman buried in Forest Park was exhumed in 2008 for DNA testing to see once and for all if this was Bell. The DNA was too degraded, so the results were inconclusive. According to a 1910 report in the Chesterton Tribune of Porter County, Indiana, $40,400 had gone missing from the men who had answered Belle's ads. That's in addition to the money that came to her through Belle's two husbands, Mads and Peter. In total, she'd gotten over $1.7 million in today's money. But no one knows what happened to it. There was only $700, about $24,000 now, in her account on the day of the fire. Her will left everything to her surviving children. But of course, there were none. The second beneficiary was the Norwegian children's home in Chicago. (41:54.53)But the home declined to accept what the superintendent called blood money. It's unclear what eventually happened to the money in Bell's account, but it was likely split between Nellie and other surviving siblings of Belle. Belle hadn't gotten a headstone from Mad Sorensen, her first husband, when he died, nor had she gotten one for Peter Gunness when he was buried in La Porte. But in 2008,
Bruce Johnson raised money to put headstones up for Peter Gunness and Jenny Olson, as well as a marker for the unidentified victims.
Bruce
Well, there are five victims. Three were buried on one day and two another day. I think that was in June.
Clare
One of the few living victims was Svanhild Dennis, the oldest child of Peter Gunness. She had been taken from Belle's home by her uncle five years before. She grew up in Wisconsin, married and had two children. She died in 1961. It's said she never stopped looking over her shoulder, fearing she'd eventually be killed by the stepmother from hell.
Clare (43:06.894)
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