EPISODE 8: Come Prepared To Stay Forever

We’ll start with an ad placed in a Norwegian-language newspaper called the Minneapolis Tidende which reads ...

This case was written and research by Victoria. 

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REFERENCES

New York Times you may need to sign up to an account to view these articles.

1 Bodies of five slain unearthed in yard of mysterious Indiana farmhouse. NYTimes.com. 6th May 1908.

2 Lampheres defense begins, attempt is made-to prove that Mrs Gunness. NYTimes.com. 21st November 1908

3 Saw Mrs Gunness alive neighbors testify they met her on farm months. NYTimes.com. 22nd November 1908.

ARTICLES

4 Belle Gunness. laportecountyhistory.org.

5 The Ogdensburg Journal, .nyshistoricnewspapers.org. 3rd June 1908.

6 How a farm girl became the ‘butcher’ of lonely men. nypost.com. 5th May 2018.

WIKITREE

7 Mads Ditlev Anton Sørensen. wikitree.com

8 Peder Gunness. wikitree.com

FIND A GRAVE

9 Andrew K “Den viltre halling” Helgelien. findagrave.com

PDF

10 Belle Gunness. The Lady Bluebeard.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
I don't know why I'm bothering, it's the most boring story in
the world, but here we are. Good post God and I'm sneezing.
What's going on, bulls? It's like a nice canteen.
London Palace What are the chances?
Like a treat to go with this. So shit.
What a crap story. But one of the.

(00:25):
Perpetrators was called Fred Doeand I laughed so hard that I
almost pee in my pants because Iwas bursting for a pee on the
drive home. Fred.
No, definitely going to smash one of them before I go to the
gym. Hi, I'm Jem.
And I'm Vic. And this is episode 8 of.
The criminal. Benbolo, I added Bimbalo in

(00:49):
because those of you who follow us on Instagram, Tiktok,
Facebook will know that Spotify generates A transcript for you.
And I find them really, really amusing.
So I throw little things into the episodes now just so I can
see. This is what she does in her
spare time, people. It's very sad.
Why are you being so mean? Why so?

(01:11):
Mean no. It's very amazing.
She sent me some of them and I cracked up.
Cracked up Badoom chart. How are you?
I'm alright, thank you. We've just had epic storm here,
which there was flying monkeys, I swear, but we've lost a fence
and a gate. Oh, but we didn't get a new
trampoline, which I just think is rude.
I yesterday after you voice noted me, I'd had to go through

(01:32):
to Elgin and a paddling pool went across the road in front of
me. But it was.
But I don't. The weather doesn't usually
bother me when I'm driving, but yesterday I was a little bit
like there's literally branches everywhere.
They do. Tell everybody to stay indoors.
Did you not get the memo? They say that every time though,
and half the time it was a bit of rain.
Yeah, it's Scotland. This is what happened.

(01:54):
It's Scotland. Sorry.
I shouldn't do that. Sorry.
Scottish people. Sorry, Jim, that was a.
Hey, you do the English one all the time and you make me out to
be a cockney every time and a. Cockney What is a cockney?
Is it a type of dog like a cock or poo?
Maybe it's a body. Part is it not Cockney?
Yeah, see it. Cockney.

(02:16):
Yeah, there you go. I don't make you out to be a
cockney. Sometimes I can really do your
accent, but I need to like focus.
I'm just wondering is I'm just wondering, is there rhyming
slang? Rhyming slang for cockney.
I went a little bit cockney towards the end.
Any who, what have you been up to?
And I'm not from Essex either. I have been working my little

(02:36):
bottom off. I had a games night with some
very good friends and taught them some new games, which was
interesting 'cause that was a bit nerdy, but also not 'cause
we were epic. Right.
I want to know of our listeners who's played the game spoons
because honestly, I have high blood pressure anyway.

(02:57):
And I was, I got a sweat on playing it.
I was just like, Oh my God, whenyou've.
So Victoria first told us the rules and she's like, at one
point she said, and if you get 4of your card on the sly,
surreptitiously take your spoon.And I'm thinking, how can it be
surreptitious? We're all sat here looking at
the goddamn spoons. Oh, well, that's not really this
weird. How's that gonna happen?
But it does. It does.

(03:18):
You look up and you're like, whyis there no spoons?
But we did very well. We got down to the final two,
yeah, but. You cheated.
I. Whooped your ass.
No, you cheated. She looked at her the card,
decided, Yep, discard it, and then went, oh, actually I've
changed my mind and took the card back and we had to play it
twice because some NUM nuts thatwe were playing with went what
are these cards over here? And I thought somebody had left

(03:40):
some cards out, but it was the jokers.
We had to start again. Oh yeah, that some NUM nuts.
Damn children. Wasn't the child.
Still a NUM nuts Oh. Yeah.
True. And I had your dad next to me.
He just kept throwing 10 cards at me.
Yeah. He wasn't very good at passing
the cards on, was he? What?
Oh, he he listened to the last episode, the last episode.

(04:03):
And for currently he's got a bone to pick with you.
Yeah, a bone. Bone.
The fossil has a bone to pick. Yeah, Bring it on, Bennett.
Bring it on. I ain't scared.
She can run faster than you too.I can.
Can we just say as well a big thank you?
I've just gone off in a tangent here to say, 'cause I know you
said your episode's gonna be long and I wanted to get this

(04:25):
in. We get some really ace messages
from people that are listening to the show and they're, I would
say 9 times out of 10, make me want to die laughing when I'm
listening to them. And this week, my friend
Heather, shout out Heather Ramshaw.
This is for you, Heather Ramshaw.
She sent me a message and pointed out something that I

(04:46):
hadn't noticed from your episode.
Feeling flushed. So Heather and I go way back.
And her partner, I don't know ifI'm allowed to mention him, but
I'm gonna. Hi, Struan.
I've never actually met him. We.
I think he's real. She sometimes puts up pictures
and shows, and it tends to be the same guy or similar of a
similar genre. Are you?
Sure, he's not the guy that comes in the photo frame.

(05:08):
You know, like, like what Phoebedid.
People come in photo frames. That's so wrong.
Sorry, Struan, we're keeping that in.
So she was catching up on our episodes and she got very
excited because one of the villains in Your Feeling Flushed
episode was called Frederick Doeand neither Victoria or I

(05:30):
noticed that. That makes him Fredo.
And we love a Fredo. A caramel Fredo.
Oh, oh, when they're all melty well strewing, he gets his oh, I
don't know if I should say that he gets his lunch for free, but
he gets his lunch for free and, and he all he likes to have a
little Fredo as his little snack.
I think both Struan and Head arequite disciplined.

(05:52):
They go to the gym and stuff, you know, like those people that
go to the gym that are not like us.
But do they not just pop in to use the vending machine?
Nope. Oh yeah, No, they actually like
the ASK machines and stuff. Yeah, so they have.
That was more. Sumo than gym OK?
I've not got a nappy on. Don't you be telling people
that. So Heather was telling me that

(06:14):
they have like this in couple joke that's like the Fredo's
like Mr Fred first name, surnameDoe.
So she found it really, really amusing to hear Fredo mentioned
on our pod. And I won't say what she told me
happened to her because I think I'll get into.
Trouble for that. And also you think that this
little segue has taken some time?
Her message, it was long. It was long.

(06:38):
She went around the houses to get to that.
No literally went around her house collecting her meal.
It was hilarious, but thank you for listening and thank you for
the positive feedback as well. Yeah, she gave us lovely
feedback. Thank you for making me want to
eat chocolate when I've just started being good again.
Oh. Heather, look what you've done.
Now Dale, silly old Heather, look what you've done.

(07:03):
You may have noticed our intro was a little bit different, and
that's because when we originally recorded, I didn't
have Heather's permission to share her voicemail.
However, I did afterwards, so I thought I'd have a little play
with it. I hope you enjoyed.
Bye. Mendez, Fredos.
Sponsored by Fredo not, but thatwould be ace.

(07:24):
Are they Cadbury? Yeah, oh, oh, are they?
I think they are because it's a purple wrapper and does not not
usually denote Cadbury. It must be Cadbury.
I also like the caramel. The Cadbury's caramel.
That's what it's called, isn't it?
The one that the Bunny used to advertise.
Oh slutty Bunny. Slutty Bunny, yeah.
I find it weird. This is another tangent, but

(07:48):
when people will say that they're attracted, like you'll
say who? Like who did you fancy as a kid?
You know, who was your celebrity?
And a lot of people come out with like Jessica Rabbit or the
Bunny from that advert. I find that sinister.
Put yourself in a corner if you are listening to this and you
were attracted to either of them.
Jessica Rabbit would have been. I don't know, I think the.

(08:11):
Weight's more normal. Though.
It's more normal to be attractedto Jessica Rabbit because she
was a human. Human, sort of, but, well, she
was a tune. But.
Yeah, but she was a human tune. Yeah, but where would her organs
have gone? I don't think she played the
piano, but him Cha God, I'm good.
Gig gig. Should we start the case?

(08:34):
Let's do it. OK, Victoria, tell me, what is
the crack? Hi, guys.
It's Jem. Just popping in really quickly
before we actually do start the case, to tell you that
everything I said about the Little House on the Prairie in
this episode was apparently incorrect.
Sorry about that. Their name was not Olson.

(08:54):
It was, in fact, Ingalls. There was no Jenny, and the tune
was for the Waltons. Oops.
So time to get started. We're going to start with an ad
placed in a Norwegian language newspaper called the Minneapolis
Tidend, which reads Personal comely widow, who owns large

(09:15):
farm in one of the finest districts in La Porta County,
Indiana, desires to make acquaintance of a gentleman
equally well provided with view of joining fortunes.
No replies by letter considered unless sender is willing to
follow answer with a personal visit.
Triflers need not apply. Oh, I know this case.
See. It is quite a famous.

(09:37):
It's the triflers, but I'm sure my favourite murderer did it and
they had merch at one point. I think it says triflers need
not apply. I would show you but after the
last one I told him a Bob. You're done with Bob.
Tell him a Bob. Oh, OK.
This ad was placed by a woman named Belle Paul's Data Gunness.
Oh Jesus, Yeah, Belle born Brynhild Paul's data storseth on

(10:00):
November the 11th, 1859 in the Iknow.
What I thought the first name was.
She was born in the cold, wind bitten hills of Selbu, Norway
and was the youngest of her siblings.
And there's conflicting information, but I think there
were six siblings and who, alongwith their parents, lived and
worked on a small farm where their girl learned from a young

(10:21):
age how to slaughter pigs and how to rear cattle, amongst
other things. Oh geez.
OK, that's good. Yeah, Belle and her family were
hard working, and she seemed destined for a modest and simple
life. However, the universe may have
had other plans. At age 17, Bell suffered A
brutal miscarriage after allegedly being kicked in the

(10:42):
stomach during a violent assaultby the baby's father.
Now, one month later, that man was dead.
I can't find his name, even I can't find the cause of death.
But later on you'll probably have an opinion of this.
OK, I thought you were gonna saythat maybe one of the animals
had done it. You know, not that they would

(11:02):
have attacked her, but, you know, like a kick in the tummy.
Oh. Sorry, attacked her?
I thought you meant killed him. Well, I did.
So I also thought maybe the cow was like, he's not very nice to
her. Mad cow disease, maybe?
Yeah. Giving my different page move.
That was lame. Oh.
Dear, it was noted that Belle's personality had changed

(11:23):
following these events. Yeah, and it seemed the quiet
Norwegian girl was gone, and what stood in her place was
something far more sinister. In 1881, the 21 year old boarded
a ship bound for America, leaving her life in Norway
behind and changing her name to Belle Peterson.
On her own. Yeah, she actually went to live
with her sister, was already over there.
All right. So she.

(11:43):
Well, she went to stop with her sister for a while.
So she arrived in Chicago, whereshe worked as a domestic servant
and a butcher. Oh, OK.
And in 1884, she met and quicklymarried a fellow Norwegian
immigrant named Mads Sorenson. OK.
The couple were believed to be unable to conceive their own
children and they've fostered four children, Caroline, Axel,

(12:04):
Myrtle and Lucy. I love those names.
Axel was the name of my the car that I had that I loved my Astra
and Myrtle. I just think that's a fantastic
name, I think. Myrtle, isn't it Becky who
actually, she was the one that requested this case?
Yeah, her son, when he was little, couldn't say Axel.
And we've got a video, I've got a video of him somewhere that

(12:25):
she sent me. And it sounds like asshole.
I love that. I like.
Cute. He was so cute.
That was little Oliver. In 1896, the Sorensons purchased
a sweet shop, an endeavour that might have marked an exciting
new chapter for the family. However, the business was
unsuccessful, and within a year,a mysterious explosion triggered
A devastating blaze, abruptly ending their sweet, sweet

(12:47):
fantasy. Now I was gonna try and sneak in
as many Mariah Carey hits into this after I put that line in.
OK, why fantasy is the sweet sweet oh.
Sweet, sweet fantasy baby. That one And then I thought, oh,
shall I try that and see if she notices, but I didn't have time.
So that's that I. Wouldn't have got it anyway

(13:08):
because I don't think I could name a Mariah Carey song.
Oh. OK, that was.
Something a waste, don't you? Yeah.
Santa. I don't know.
Is she not like boobs? Doesn't she come out at
Christmas Boobs boobly? The boob.
I thought you meant tits. No.
The fire in the sweetie shop resulted in a substantial
insurance payout OK, which the couple used to purchase a new

(13:29):
home in Chicago. But misfortune was stalking this
family and by the close of 1898,both Caroline and Axel, the two
eldest Sorenson children, were dead.
No. Why?
Official reports attributed their deaths to acute colitis
right, and whilst at the time ofCarolines death there had been
no reason to suspect foul play, so her death had raised no

(13:51):
alarm. OK.
But when Axel died shortly afterwards with similar symptoms
to his sister, quiet suspicions began to bubble.
Because the symptoms of acute colitis can closely mimic those
of certain poisons. Oh.
Stricken. The symptoms include like tummy
pain and cramping, bloody and frequent diarrhoea, fatigue,
fever, joint pain amongst other things.

(14:14):
Is it the same thing horses get?Colitis.
Cholera, colic. It's intestinal.
Never mind. Could it not have just been a
bug? They both are they're.
Not a Horse Dr. You're not. Why am I here with my fall?
Sometimes I get my words confused, which is great because

(14:35):
I'm a podcaster, but I remember not being able to remember what
and now I've forgotten it again.What a fall was called what A
and I called it a horse puppy because I didn't know what it
was called. I'm like how do I explain this
word horse puppy? I don't know why I was talking
about them, but anyway I. Pity the fall, right?
Go on, go on. So this is bad.

(14:56):
This is about death, and we're laughing.
We're not laughing at the situation.
We're laughing at Gemma, even. After we're laughing at you.
OK, even after the deaths of thetwo children, tragedy seemed to
shadow the Sorenson family still.
And when their new Chicago home,though conveniently well
insured, was soon engulfed in flames as well, rumours of arson
and whispers of murder began to flourish.
Well, they would. But with no conclusive evidence

(15:18):
of either, the insurance companyonce again paid out.
So that's now two life insurancepolicies for the children.
Hold on, is it normal to insure your children?
Because I've heard this in othercases.
I really, it's not something I've ever considered.
I know when I get those because I'm of a certain age, I get
those sort of well woman emails saying insure yourself and you

(15:38):
can insure your child as well. But maybe in America they insure
children more often. Well, I think in America they
have health insurance. I don't think it's necessarily
death like life insurance because obviously you get your
partner covered because they're bringing in a wage and if
something happens to them then it's to cover they're outgoing
so. Yeah, the the loss from the

(15:59):
house. But your kid doesn't work.
No. So why would you?
Yeah, I just find it bizarre. I do too, but so they've had
those two insurance for the children, the home insurance and
the money from the sweet shop aswell.
So now pretty well flush with cash and I would imagine quite
eager to escape the peering eyesand wagging tongues, Bella Mads
decided it was time to get out of Dodge.
Yeah, let's blow this coconut donut style.

(16:21):
Coconut. It's a coconut Chai.
They packed up what remained of their family and relocated to
Lost in Illinois, seemingly unscathed by the string of
losses, including two children, their home and business.
By now I'm sure you can see a pattern emerging and it won't
take a great deal of imaginationfor you to sort of guess where
this is going. Belle soon expressed that she

(16:45):
was displeased with the amount Mads life insurance policy was
worth and she asked him to increase it.
He did so and on the 30th of July 1900, which was the very
day his two insurance policies crossed.
Over. Bell's first husband, Mad
Sorenson, died from undeterminedcauses once all stated heart

(17:08):
failure. However, this would later be
determined to be strychnine poison.
That you was right, Gold Star for Gemma.
She knows her poisons. Should we be worried?
I did a case when I did KCR. In fact, I did 2 restrict my
poison. I probably listen to them.
Then we've got ourselves a lady killer criminal crack.

(17:31):
Not Gemma. I'm not told she doesn't poison
people. I hope.
No, we've we've got a She Devil,a femme fatale who would later
be nicknamed Hells Bell, amongstother things.
Hold on, I'm just thinking back to the kids.
I'm not saying that adopted children are anyway somebody's
children, but were they adopted properly?

(17:52):
I don't know. I don't know if it was an
official thing because they wereas well.
They did take the last name of they took the Sorenson name.
So, oh, if you're wondering as well, she was successful in
claiming both the life insurancepolicies that overlapped on the
day that he died. So she got both.
Yeah. So it was, obviously, I'm saying

(18:14):
it was obviously very intentional, but it can't be a
coincidence, can it? I wouldn't have thought so.
I don't really believe in them. In either 1901 or 1902, so after
collecting Mads increased life insurance policy to the tune of
$8000, which was approximately $200,000 in modern day money,
Belle headed off to a farm she'dpurchased in La Porta, Indiana

(18:38):
with Myrtle, Lucy and a third child.
Another one. Yep.
So this little girl was called Jenny Olson and she had been
abandoned by her own mother. So it was seen to be a a good
deed because obviously Belle wasconsidered a sort of upstanding
member of the community. She was religious, although some
would say she was a religious fanatic.

(19:00):
From one perspective, is she a woman that's just had lots of
misfortune and tragedy or? Is she the misfortune is.
She Yeah. Charity.
Oh my goodness. Sorry, tragedy.
Yes, she's got another child with her now.
Anyway, I'm. Pretty sure the Olsons were the
kids in A Little House on the Prairie.
Just throwing that out there now.
Remember, this is weird. I don't remember words from that

(19:22):
programme. I remember the music and I
remember the House in the Prairie.
They were awesome. Was the tune or was that the
Waltons? That's good night, Jam boy.
That was the. Waltons.
That's the Waltons. By April Fool's Day in 1902,
Belle had met and married her second husband.

(19:44):
Oh dear, Gorge. Peter, which is PEDER, but we'll
call him Peter because that's what most references say.
He was Peter Gunness and he was another Norwegian whose wife had
recently died and left the widow, I can't say that widower
with two young children, an infant also named Jenny and
Swanhilled. Swanhilled.

(20:06):
Is that a girl's name? It's a girl's.
Name they don't let the dust settle in the 18 oh, the 1900s
do they like Oh, my husband's dead oh, want to marry me oh.
It gets better less than a week later though.
This is sad. Little Jenny, who was only 8
months old, died of a virus whilst in Bell's care.
Oh, and by December of the same year, Peter, so hubby number 2

(20:29):
was also dead. Killed when a sausage grinder
fell on his head. What?
I know and that rhymed and I didn't realise so.
Just wait. Hang on.
She was a butcher, wasn't she? So was this at home?
This was at home. Oh, it just happened to.
Fall on his head, Bell told authorities he scolded himself
with Brian as he reached for something near the stove.
Did I say Brian or Brian? You said, Brian?

(20:50):
Brian, as he reached for something near the stove, that
grinder fell, struck him on the head, and this caused a fatal
fracture. Despite this explanation,
though, his death was listed as a murder.
Oh good, but. But Belle somehow convinced
investigators that there was no wrongdoing and she was actually
paid $300 in insurance. Oh, you're joking.
They paid her again. It's mind blowing, isn't it?

(21:10):
In the spring following Peter's death, the now twice widowed
Belle gave birth to their son Philip.
I thought. She couldn't have kids.
I think the first husband could,maybe not.
Maybe he was shooting blanks or something.
I actually thought it was a complication from the
miscarriage. I did initially but then it is
reported that she had children of her own so or at least one

(21:31):
child of her own. But this means that if she did
pop him off, she was pregnant atthe time.
So. But you can't blame pregnancy
hormones for killing your husband with a sausage grinder,
even if he did piss you off. Well no you can't.
But you can't wonder about it when she's killed nearly every
person around us. I wonder if the bio child will
survive and it's just the fosterkids that she killed.
She is Lady Doom, isn't she? She's a.

(21:53):
Heinous beast. But also I thought about this
from a different perspective as well, because she had been
violently assaulted during her first pregnancy when she she was
a teenager and she'd lost the baby.
So was was this self preservation?
You know, was she trying to protect herself and a baby?
Was she paranoid? Had something kicked off and she
was thinking, oh, he's gonna do some.
No, no, no. That's her.
I, I would sorry. I'd say that's her reach.

(22:15):
You don't foster kids and kill them just in case somebody else
kills them. No, but I was thinking of the
'cause if she was pregnant when she killed him, maybe, I don't
know which I think when she was.Pregnant at that point though.
MMM, because they didn't have clear blue back then.
No, you're probably right. I mean, it's probably not the
case anyway, especially when youhear what she gets up to in the
years that followed. So.

(22:36):
OK, yeah, you'll remember that Iopened with an ad and Bell's.
Triflers. Triflers Bell started placing
these notices in the lonely hearts columns of three
different Norwegian American weekly newspapers shortly after
Peter's death in December 1902, and it may even have been before
she gave birth to their son in the following spring.
And it's thought she had also signed up to national

(22:57):
matrimonial agencies too. So a little reminder.
The gist of the ad was that she had money, but she needed a man
around the house because she waslonely.
Sorry if all a widow, but she would only warrant the interest
of a fellow who was equally welloff, who would show up with cold
hard cash and who could be a partner on the farm and maybe
more. She's so lonely, like the poor

(23:19):
woman just keeps killing husbands, and it's just one of
those things, you know? So it's not known exactly how
many responses Bell received leave to the notices she placed.
But we do know the names of at least six men who responded
between 1903 and 1908 and who were never seen alive.
No. At least one of these guys and

(23:40):
you'll love this. His name was John Moo, turned up
with $1000 to woo the burly farmfatale.
Moo was there to woo. Sorry 'cause he's probably dead.
In fairness, he would be by now anyway.
He is. Wait, did they all have
insurance policies taken out on them?
Not a genuine question. Is that how we know their?

(24:00):
Names, They all turned up with cash.
That was basically it, she said.If you can't turn up with cash,
don't. You know who turned up if she's
been off them. You don't tell people.
I think it was loved ones sayingthey were missing.
I think it was also through a matrimonial agency.
There was names and records and there's other things as well,
but a man named George Anderson answered one of Bell's lonely

(24:23):
hearts notices. He arrived at her secluded farm,
eager to win favour with the grieving widow who had confided
in him that she was struggling to pay her mortgage and barely
able to keep her home. It sounds like she was like a
total manipulator for the OF. Hoping to impress her, he
offered to cover the mortgage payments.
This satisfied Bell very much and she proposed marriage almost

(24:46):
instantly. George.
It was perhaps flattered or simply too eager.
He accepted the proposal. However, the following night, as
he lay sleeping, something stirred and woke him, and he
woke with such a fright to see Belle looming over the bed, her
eyes fixed on him. George screamed.
And with that, Belle ran from the room.

(25:07):
George was so startled by the event that he fled the farm,
abandoning the proposal and his promise to Belle.
But it seems in doing so, he mayhave saved his own skin, and
there are suggestions that George was the only man to
escape Belle Gunness alive. Why?
Why is she? Why does she have a mortgage?
I don't think she has a mortgage.

(25:29):
She bought it outright. She had enough to buy it
outright. I think it's all bullshit.
Oh, she's a scumbag. A real scumbag.
Yeah, this is just like, oh, woeis me, I can't keep my farm if I
don't. But you can live here with me
and be my husband and me, me, me, me, me.
It's all rubbish and she said itin the accent too.
Did she? Yeah, she was Cockney, was she?

(25:53):
One of the chaps who responded to an ad in 19 O 7 was named Ray
Lamphere. He was hoping to marry Bell too,
but she wasn't interested. Still, he clearly had something
about him because Bell kept him around and employed him as a
farmhand, and he becomes a key person in this case.
It's also suspected that they were friends with benefits.

(26:15):
So you didn't have any? He was hot, I.
Reckon we must have been something.
And just to keep you up to speedhere, so it's nineteen O 7.
Those living on the farm now areBelle, the children Lucy Merkel
and Philip, and the farmhand Ray.
And you may be wondering about the other Jenny.
Yeah, the adopted fostered girl that had been abandoned.
Well, Belle claimed that Jenny had gone to school in LA and no

(26:38):
one had seen her on the farm forover a year.
Swan Hill didn't live on the farm either, but I can't find
out that she ever did and I can't find out where she'd gone.
But records show, because I looked at the ancestry thing,
that she did actually live to be64 years old.
She got she got out Dodge proper.
Ray the farmhand had been cast aside and was becoming

(27:00):
increasingly envious of the steady stream of male visitors.
Bell entertained because they didn't stop coming.
So there was George Berry, who journeyed from Illinois with
$1500. Christian Hilkven sold his farm
for 2000 and brought the money to La Porta.
Emil Tel also came with 2000, while both Old Budsburg and Joe

(27:23):
no John Moo previous actually mentioned, arrived with $1000
each. So she's just got this money,
this trail of men coming in, this money coming in.
And then came Andrew Helgelian. In 1906, a wealthy bachelor
named Andrew Helgelian from Aberdeen, North Dakota,
responded to one of Belle's lonely hearts ads after about 18

(27:44):
months of corresponding what began as a business proposition.
Yaha, I don't believe that soon turned romantic and with the two
envisioning a life together. Some of Bell's letters to Andrew
are still preserved in a museum.But I couldn't find which
museum. OK, so LaPorte to have a
Historical Society, and I wonderif it's there.
But this is an excerpt from one of the last letters he received

(28:08):
from her. So he's not living with her.
He goes there, but this is the last letter she sent before that
happened. Okay.
To the dearest friend in the world, no woman in the world is
happier than I am. I know that this is really
cringe. I know that you are now to come
to me and be my own. I can tell from your letters

(28:28):
that you are the man I want. It does not take one long to
tell when I when to like a person and you I like better
than anyone in the world I know.Think how we will enjoy each
other's company. You the sweetest man in the
world. We will be alone with each
other. You can conceive, No.
Can you conceive of anything nicer?

(28:49):
I think of you constantly when Ihear your name mentioned and
this is when one of the dear children speaks of you or I hear
myself humming in the words of an old love song.
It is a beautiful music to my ears.
My heart beats in wild rapture for you, my Andrew, I love you.
Come prepared to stay forever. Why are the children speaking

(29:11):
about? A man they've never met that
she's corresponding. Yes, she's just made all that
up. And how cringy.
So cringy. Have they even seen each other
at this point? I I don't think they're did.
They have, yeah, they must have photos they must have sent,
surely? Maybe not.
I don't know. They didn't care what they just
letters. But come prepared to stay, say,
forever, I think, turns into something much more.

(29:34):
Yeah, That's what she should have written.
You ain't gone nowhere. Shortly after receiving this, I
mean, baffled as to why, but shortly after receiving this,
Andrew withdrew $2900 in savingsfrom his local bank and
travelled to meet Belle on her farm.
She had told Andrew that. Wait a SEC, you don't?

(29:56):
Understand based on that beautiful romantic but kind of
raunch letter, you don't understand why he was making his
way straight. There, or was he thinking with
his penis? Real You think that letter would
speak to a penis? No.
It's like, you know those car books that you get where it
tells you how your car works? That would probably get more of

(30:16):
our eyes out of a guy than that letter.
The Heinz Manual. Not sponsored by, but we'd love
to be. Don't make them.
Yeah, they do. They do.
I'm thinking about getting one for the van.
You should definitely so she told Andrew before he headed
there that he should keep all this a secret to later surprise

(30:38):
their families of their romance.However, Andrew did tell his
brother of the shenanigans. Andrew arrived at the farm for
what was expected to be a two week stay initially on the 3rd
of January 1908. Three days later the couple
entered a bank together where Andrew cashed in three
certificates of deposit worth a little shy of three, $1000,
which is I think around 75,000 in modern day monies.

(31:01):
And he's already brought the twoname.
Oh. Yeah, a certificate of deposit,
or CDs as they were known, were types of savings where you'd pay
in a fixed amount for a fixed period and when you cash them,
the bank would give you the money plus interest.
Like an ISA? So yeah, I think so.
These were considered a Safeway to save, unless of course, you

(31:22):
were lured to a secluded farmhouse by a she which intent
on stealing your life savings. This wasn't an instant
transaction given the large sumsof money involved, so it took
five days before the couple returned to the First National
Bank of La Porta to collect the funds.
While Andrew seemed to be content to accept a cheque and

(31:43):
leave part of the money safely deposited in the local bank,
they'll reportedly grew agitatedand insisted that the entire
amount be paid in cash in full. And the bank complied.
This trip to the bank was the last last time anyone saw Andrew
Helgelian alive. Wow, I know.
Bam bam bam. What happened?

(32:06):
So concerned quickly spread in Aberdeen when Andrew failed to
return home. Oh, his brother Asla.
Asla that's like. Cool.
It actually was asla. Asla found Bell's letter, so I
had to Google how to pronounce that one 'cause it's ASL E but
it's asla. It's are they Norwegian as well?
Mm hmm, OK, sorry I've. Missed that part.

(32:28):
Yeah. So this was Andrew's brother.
Asla found Bell's letter among Andrew's belongings and began
writing to her, asking about hisbrother's whereabouts.
So sensing something wasn't right, he also contacted
Andrew's bank and the bank in LaPorta.
Oh good boy. Yeah, he did his own, like,
sleuthing. It's really good.
The First National Bank confirmed that Andrew had

(32:50):
visited with the Widow Bell, butwhen Asla confronted her, she
nonchalantly claimed that Andrewhad left to travel through
Norway and Sweden. Hang on nonchalantly through a
letter or did he go and meet herface to face?
This was through a letter, I think at this time.
Oh yes. So this was through a letter
because she even said wrote sorry, you're welcome to come to

(33:13):
my farm and see for yourself. Are you joking, love?
When? No.
But when Asla called her bluff and said OK, I will, the
pressure began to mount and it seemed Bell's wicked crimes were
once again catching up to her. So people were getting
suspicious. But I really don't foresee a
good engine for Asla now, because if he turns up, is she
not just going to be like she's not just going to kill him on

(33:36):
the spot? Well, he doesn't know that she's
a wicked beast. He.
Must think that she's done something to his.
He thinks she's stolen the brother's money and done
something to him. So that would be enough to make
me go, oh, maybe I'll get the police.
Involved, but she also, he also probably thinks I'm a dude and
I'm gonna go to this widow's house 'cause I just want to know
what's going on. So he probably underestimated

(33:58):
Bell. Like probably many, many of them
did. Or all of them.
Yeah. So Ray the farmhand, growing
jealousy had become increasinglydisruptive around the farm,
began causing trouble around thetime of Andrew's visit, and in
February 1908, Bell fired him and hired a new farmhand called
Joe Maxon. Did did Ray know that all these

(34:20):
guys were ending up dead? Because why is he getting
jealous when they're leaving? People think he was her
accomplice. Yeah, so he maybe wasn't getting
jealous then, because I think hewas still.
Jealous that she was inviting all these guys and still
wouldn't give her a look. Give him a look in or do you
think? Yeah, he thought, Oh well, there
are notches on her bedpost. Why am I not?
But I think he was as well, so it's all a bit complex.

(34:42):
I think they were doing it. She didn't stop there with Ray
though, so Bell also tried to have him committed, claiming
that he was insane and he'd threatened to kill her and the
children, as well as burn down the farm.
Oh. So, and it all gets a bit, it's
all quite close together now. So April the 27th, she
approached an attorney who helped her create a will.

(35:03):
But there's nothing unusual about that other than the
timing, as you'll find out in a second.
The very next day, on April the 28th, 1908, at around 4:00 AM,
the new farmhand, Joe Maxson woke to the smell of smoke.
Uh oh. The farm was indeed a blaze.
Joe allegedly tried to get to the family but realising there

(35:24):
was no way he could fight the flames, he hurried to LA Porter
and alerted the fire department.Ray was reportedly seen fleeing
the inferno. Oh, because of course he was the
arsonist. In the following hours, once the
flames were eventually extinguished, authorities
discovered the remains of the three children and a woman in
the basement of the house. I don't think it's her, is it?

(35:45):
I don't think it's her in the basement.
They were presumed to be Belle and the children, but curiously,
the adult female did not have a head.
And how would you identify somebody?
Well, if somebody lived in your time with no head, and then
somebody was fine dead with no head, you're gonna be like, I
think it might be that one. Well, maybe Jenny hadn't got
missing. No.
How old was Jenny? She was only 16 I think when she

(36:08):
went missing. 16 so that's adultsized nearly so she.
Might have been slightly youngerthan.
That maybe if she'd been kept inthe basement.
As if I need to get a dodge quickly.
I want people to think I'm dead.Yeah.
Well, the plot thickens. 'Cause she's obviously set the
fire, so she's not gonna kill herself and cut her own head
off, is she? Well, she couldn't do.
That some people suggested suicide and I'm like how the.

(36:30):
How do you? Well, I know.
Like what? And where is the head?
Maybe if the head was like hanging off next.
Yeah, you'd be like, well, that was a really.
I guess you could run into something really fast, but you'd
have to be your head still be there.
Yeah, your your skull would still be there.
On May the 3rd it's just. Not like it's not the thing from
Adam's family thing. The hand from Adam's family can

(36:53):
live on its own, so maybe the head could, you know.
But wait, I think. We're off on a tangent here.
I don't what. Toy Story The head on the spider
legs. Do you know how sinister bits of
Toy Story are? Yeah, because it was a.
Drinker. It was that big.
Yeah, I love that. So on May the 3rd, a search
began on the grounds of the farm.
Local men were tasked with looking for a head to go along

(37:15):
with the torso. Joe Maxon told police he would
often be tasked with digging holes for Belle Gunness, which
she would later fill in. Very, very strange.
And also he noted that a woman had arrived with no head before.
This is ridiculous. She's obviously staged her own
death. When he prompted the search team
to the sites, which had been dugand filled in most recently,

(37:38):
almost instantly one of the men struck the ground with a shovel
and hit human flesh. Andrew's brother Asla was also
at the farm by now, so he reallyhad turned up.
He'd long suspected the foul play and had made his way there,
as he said he would, in search of his missing brother.
Yeah, this is horrible. Noticing A freshly disturbed

(37:58):
area around the waste pit, Asla began to dig alongside the other
men in the search team. Unearthing A burlap sack, Asla
paused for a second before he opened it to make a horrifying
discovery. He was looking at his brother's
severed head, hands and feet. Oh my God, can you just.
I know we know she does that because she's a picture.

(38:18):
So now we know she does that. So that was not her.
In the they found Andrew's legs,arms and torso in separate
sacks, all buried beneath the waste pit.
On the first day of searching the men on earth remains of five
individuals. On the second day, they found a
further six. Oh my God.
After this, it's claimed they lost count to.

(38:39):
Wait, that's really bad policing, but OK, yeah.
The remains were all dismemberedand all found near each other,
under the pigpen and close by. It's really nuts that given the
time frame this all happened andthat she had the forethought to
do like cut their bodies up, because if you're burying them
anyway, most people would have just buried them.
I think it's genuinely so she could move them because she was

(39:02):
dismembering them in the basement.
Oh, because it would have been too heavy, of course, of course.
Yeah, she's a sick cookie. Really sick.
Puppy, I mean. This is, this is bad too.
Skeletal remains of a young girlwere discovered in a shallow
grave. These were later determined to
be Jenny, the girl Bella had adopted but claimed she'd sent
to finishing school in LA. But then does she just kill her

(39:25):
for the sake of it because she never claimed on the insurance?
I'll tell. You in a minute.
Jenny's body was discovered on what would have been her 18th
birthday as well, in a horrible coincidence.
Did she have a head? Her body was decapitated and
badly mutilated. Why?
And was identified. And I hate this.
Oh, it was identified on May the6th by her father, Anton Olson.

(39:46):
The horrors in this case are endless, and the unnecessary
trauma inflicted on survivors isunreal.
Yeah, her father. And I'm like, doesn't she with
her father? Like why was she did her mom?
Did her mum give her away or didBelle just take this kid?
Well, later on, I haven't included this, I've put it in my
extra bits, but the police did order for grounds at her Austin

(40:10):
house to be checked because theybelieved that there had been
another murder, and I wonder if that was Jenny Olsen's mother.
You're not allowed to pick casesanymore.
I'm. Sorry you say this to me.
And you keep doing it, I know. Jenny was in a very shallow
grave, then buried underneath with the skeletal remains of two
men laid out on a mattress. The decomposition of the men was

(40:34):
at a similar stage to that of Jenny, suggesting they've been
killed around the same time. Some speculated that Jenny had
threatened to reveal Belle's heinous secrets and had to be
silenced permanently. So I wonder if, yeah, she'd
seen. Maybe she hadn't known before,
and maybe she'd seen with these two men.
I don't know, it just seems something obviously was

(40:55):
triggered and Jenny had to go between the 8th of May and the
29th. In 1908 the team searching the
grounds discovered, and this wasa quote, a jumble of putrefied
body parts, naked torsos wrappedin burlaps, heads, arms and legs
scattered around, all in close proximity, all naked, all

(41:16):
hastily buried. Words soon travelled about the
murder mill at Mcclung Rd Farm. Wild theories began to circulate
that Bell, who was some kind of cleaner for the mob, who would
have body parts shipped to her in trunks for her to dispose of
on the farm in exchange for payment.
Now Detective Schutler said on this I have looked up a report
that there are two trunks in Chicago consigned to Mrs

(41:38):
Gunness, he said, I do not find the trunks.
I think it extremely unlikely that a person would ever try to
ship bodies around the country in this manner.
Suggested detection would be, you might say, inevitable,
wouldn't it? You'd think.
Well, it only seems to be because she got sloppy towards
the end there and I can't remember what.

(41:59):
Andrew's brother's name, I can'tremember.
He pronounced it because he was licking.
If he hadn't gone licking, maybethis never would have came out.
True. Yeah, they might have stopped at
the fire and gone. That's that.
She might not have done the fire.
The fire might be a result of uslike getting too close to what
was going on. I think the mob theory is just
ridiculous. It's a bit far fetched.
I don't think it's far fetched, I think it's just has no place

(42:22):
here. It's clearly her.
Yeah, I think it's maybe that they thought, oh, a woman
couldn't have done this. Not no, no, no.
Accounts vary, but estimates saythat anywhere between 13 and 43
bodies rumoured to have been recovered from the farm,
although they. Lost count at 13.
I know. How'd you lose count AT13I?
Know it's not that many, is it? But some reports even claimed

(42:42):
that 22 right arms were discovered among the remains,
but their origins were never identified.
So back to Ray OK, who had been seen fleeing the inferno.
Ray Lamphair was arrested for arson, accused of deliberately
setting the fire that killed Belle Gunness and her three

(43:03):
children. Oh, you guys are idiots.
However, once behind bars, Ray began to reveal some startling
information. Am I going to be startled or I
don't think you will, Yeah. Ray claimed the headless body
which had been recovered from the basement was not that of
Belle Gunness was in fact a woman who had been invited to
the farm under the guise of accepting a job as a housekeeper

(43:25):
for the family just days before.He claimed Bell was a calculated
murderess who lured unsuspectingsuitors to their death.
They would arrive offering theirlife savings in return for
marriage and the prospect of a happy life with a woman looking
for companionship. Neighbours recalled seeing
numerous men arrive at the farm but when they asked Bell about
the men, she would say they wereunsuitable and had to leave.

(43:48):
Bray claimed they never left. He said she would invite them
for supper, then lace their coffee with poison, and once the
effects had taken hold, she would strike them, splitting
their skulls. He said she would then drag them
to the basement where she would butcher the bodies, making it
easier for her to lumber them outside, where she would feed
some parts to the hogs and bury other parts in gunny sacks.

(44:09):
Oh, yeah? OK.
It's horrid, isn't it? Yeah, Ray claimed Belle had been
feeling under pressure and had recently packed up the proceeds
of her lonely heart charade. She then smothered her three
children in the basement, decapitated the unidentified
housekeeper and staged the scene.
Ray admitted helping Belle to dig holes and bury sacks.

(44:30):
He also admitted to helping her douse the farming kerosene
before setting it alight. But he claims he fled with
Gunness, who he drove to the train station where she boarded
a train to Chicago. So.
But who was the headless woman in the basement?
Does somebody report? No, can't find any information
on her. Some say she was seen in a pub

(44:50):
or an inn with Belle the weekendbefore.
There's just so many vague sort of little bits, I couldn't find
anything conclusive. It was a long time ago.
Yeah, the coroner that performedthe post mortem examination
recorded the woman from the basement.
This did make me laugh. It shouldn't, but recorded the
woman's height as 5 inches shorter than Belle.

(45:11):
But it didn't have a head, so surely it would be sure.
They do that though. Ohh, I don't.
Know mind you heard arms weren'tattached either.
And ohh. When I say do this and you're
apparently your height is from your index fingertip to your
other index fingertip. If you're being an.
Aeroplane, you know, Imagine I'ma swan.
But also the the body was 50 lbslighter than what they thought

(45:34):
Belle was, and because she'd been quite a burly, hefty woman,
and the corpse was notably smaller, there were also
witnesses who claimed to have seen her alive afterwards.
Well, there you. Go so neighbours Daniel Hudson
and his two daughters reported seeing a woman at the farm
months like months after this was July, I think.

(45:54):
So months after the fire. Someone they say was
unmistakably her. They were even called in the
defence of Ray Lampheir during his trial.
So on November the 21st, and this is from the New York Times,
the testimony of three witnesseswho declared that they saw
Missus Bell gunness alive several months after the fire
that destroyed her home. Quote When I got within two

(46:16):
waggon lengths, they got into a buggy and drove off, said
Hudson. And I tried to follow them.
They got ahead of me and I did not like to follow them.
There was a good chance of getting a chunk of lead, yeah.
Hudson's daughters, Evelyn, aged11, and Eldora, aged 9 years.
They had some great names. That's.
Cute. Each related having seen Mrs

(46:36):
Gunness in Hay time. Near the woods, according to the
former, near the big gate according to the latter.
So in Hay Time. I love that as well.
That's autumn, isn't it? I.
Don't know when they do he. All three of the witnesses
declared they knew Mrs Gunness so well they could not be

(46:56):
mistaken as to seeing her, notwithstanding the woman they
saw was heavily veiled. Her own relatives didn't even
believe she perished in the fire.
Her own sister, Mrs Nellie Larson saying I do not believe
that Gunness woman is dead. She was too expert a criminal to
be caught that way. She may be in Chicago, no one
can say. I've not been able to find any

(47:17):
information as the name of the woman in the basement at all.
If it wasn't Gunness. Gunness's rings were found close
to the body, as was a ring with the initial SB.
OK. So it's like, did Gunness put
her rings there to try and stagethe scene but actually forgot to
remove the woman's own rings? Another chap that was called in
Ray's defence was John Anderson.He was another neighbour of Mrs

(47:41):
Gunness, and he saw the strange woman with Mrs Gunnis the
Saturday before the fire. This is the woman the defence
contends must have been murderedby Gunnis and whose body they
ever was, the adult body in the ruins.
Anderson in his testimony said. I saw Mrs Gunnis on Saturday
morning before the fire. There was a strange woman with
her. She was a little smaller than
Mrs Gunnis. I have never seen her since.

(48:02):
So despite there not being a head on the charred body,
dentures with gold crowns were recovered.
These were identified by Belle'sdentist to belong to the widow,
but he also stated that they could have been removed.
But why was there dentures with no head?
Yeah, I was going to say, why would you get rid of the head
but leave some dentures? But then that's her way of
saying, oh, it was me that was dead.

(48:22):
Some people claim that the head could have gone first in the
fire because it could have been fatty enough, but yeah, poison
was found in the stomachs of thechildren and the woman.
However, the stomachs had been stored in the same jar, so there
was no conclusive evidence as towhether one or all had been
poisoned. Could have lived without knowing
they were in a jar. So but Ray was found guilty of

(48:44):
Arsene on November the 26th of 1908, and he died of
tuberculosis less than one year later.
Oh, why? OK.
But his claims may have been truthful, and as there were
numerous sightings of Belle Gunness for years after the
mysterious fire which supposedlyclaimed her life, I wonder about
the will as well that she made the day before.
And was it a red herring? Because she wouldn't get

(49:05):
anything from that, would she? Because she was the one that
died. So why?
What was the point of that? And this is where some claimed
that she had given up and no things have got too deep and she
was plotting suicide. But like I said, how would you
cut your own head off? It wasn't her body.
So how do you explain all the inconsistencies?
In 2008, forensic scientists attempted to test DNA, comparing

(49:28):
samples from the headless corpsewith those from a letter sent by
Gunness, but unfortunately, the sample from the letter was
deemed unviable due to its age, which is such a shame.
Like you. The thing is, you don't really
need to have that to know that it wasn't her.
What? Sorry.
In my notes I've made a typo. What's your typo?

(49:49):
I've written I'm going to floof Facebook.
Victoria didn't know for a long time that in Scotland a fleef is
a vagina, so she kept calling her dog her fluffy floof and I
had to say to her she my little floof.
She told me once she was shavingher floof and that's where this
all began. But it wouldn't stay still.

(50:11):
Little Wiggler I'm going to flood Facebook with and pictures
and stuff about this case because there's so much.
There's even been loads of bookswhich I will.
I don't. I haven't read them so I'm not
going to recommend them, but I'll put a list.
Also, all of Victoria's references will be on Spotify.

(50:31):
And there's a film about this too, which I do want to find.
It's just called The Farm. Oh, not to be confused with
Animal Farm. I hope my research and
exploration has successfully captured the essence of this
well known case of a prolific serial killer.
I don't think it's too bad doingone that's so well known.
I think it's well known to some people, but I think there'll be

(50:52):
a lot of people who've never heard of well.
I had read a small thing about it in a book that I had of loads
of female killers years ago. And then Becky, one of our
lovely listeners, Becky, my TFF from Dan Seth.
That's why I always do cockney. MMM.
Sorry, she asked me to do this one and I've had some other
people suggest cases too so I amgoing to look at them, but I'll

(51:14):
do some surprise ones in between.
Well, there'll still be a surprise to me.
Well, the be a surprise to thosepeople as well because they'll
be excited by it. Shout out.
And but this was good and like Isay, there is so much
information, so much and there'sloads of actual proper newspaper
articles which I've managed to get the images of which I'll
share and stuff. Well, we can get some more
because we do have a newspapers.com account, so we

(51:36):
can look up some of them. And.
OK, well on that note, thank youvery much to everybody for
listening. The next case will be mine.
And please keep following our socials.
Just a little word to say that if you don't like sharing
things, which is a great helping, a little podcast grow,
you can also download an episodeevery now and again, like or

(52:00):
comment on something. That all helps us.
And I want to say another thank you to Andy because he's kept
our advert on his podcast, See Beyond Graves and Stars, which
every episode of his just makes me want to watch these old
horror films. And I wish I had time to do
that. But we are gonna hook up soon, I
think, and watch a film. Because we've been asked to go

(52:21):
on his podcast, which we're veryexcited about.
Yeah, it just so happens that heasked in the summer holidays in
Scotland, which has made it slightly difficult for us to get
time, but we will be getting that done.
We are going to arrange it so wewill be guest starring on
another. So he is, which is really fun.
It is, and I was going to say aswell, my cousin Dion.

(52:42):
Dion Hi, He is a. Listener and he said some lovely
things. Power Podcast.
But I've got to say to Dionne, you keep going on Radio 1 and
you keep getting shout outs on Radio One.
Why aren't you bloody telling them about our podcast mate?
Why are you being cockney? Again, I don't know, I can't
help myself. I could be Spanish if.
I'm good. No, please don't.
I'm going to be less aggressive than you and say, Dionne, please

(53:05):
give us shout outs whenever you're on Radio One.
We'd appreciate it. They love him on Radio One
because he eats a lot of sausages and works with wood.
I don't understand why that makes them like them anymore,
but that's fantastic. Thank you very much for
listening and we will be back again soon.
Bye bye. Keep on trucking.