Ep 52 - Belle Gunness, the Indiana Ogress FT. Heterophobia's Brett Masterson! - Scream and Sugar: True Crime Coffee Hour

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back, everyone to another episode of Scream and Sugar,
the True kind podcast that delves into the darker side
of humanity while savoring a little sweetness on the side.
My name is Candace, I'm Sahara, and I'm Brett. And
what are we talking about today, Brett?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
They were talking about Belle Gunnis, the Indiana Ogress, Hell's Princess,
and the Black Widow of Lapoor, Indiana.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
So if y'all can't tell, we are in today with
our boy, Brett Masterson.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Thank you for remembering my name.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Did you hear the question mark at the d wait Wisconsin?
I don't know, because I've always read your I've alway
read your last name, but I just read the first
letter in the last like a couple letters, and I'm
just like close enough, Brett mast Well.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
It's the first letter in the last of my name.
Also coincide with Michigan, which is the other Midwestern state.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Michigan isn't Midwest.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Michigan is totally Midwest.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
It's not North.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Michigan's like next to.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Ohio with snow.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
I just imagine it by them.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Great Lakes, Baby, which Michigan has the little and they
can grow to it.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Michigan touches four out of five of the Great Lakes.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yes, Ohio is just the one.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yes, yes it Erie.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
I don't know too much for Americas. Gerography is the
one that.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Michigan we're great at Americans.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
You are really good, both of you. I'm really impressed.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
I said the wrong lake and I lived on fucking
Lake Erie for like two months.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
That's whole areas. Actually, you know what, Kansas is worse
than me. Everybody heard it here.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
You heard it here first, Like quiz me on the
capitals of all the states sometimes, and it's really fun game.
Why I don't know. We were doing it with his
dad when he was here walking around the dogs and
we were just like rattling and all rattling the some
dad shit. I don't know. It was fun. My dad
used to quiz me on all of the capitals in
the United States and then also European countries.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Eduication, No, don't education me. What you never got quized
on capital I did in school and it was the
worst experience of life.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
You've never revisited that life.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
There's a Cocomo Indiana too, and for the longest time.
I thought the Beach Boys song was about that.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
So you were born in Indiana.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yes, northern Indiana to be specific.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
And what main agricultural crop has grown in Indiana? Corn excellent?
Should have known that was coming.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Soybeans are pretty a pretty close second though.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
We all love delicious Brett.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
You are in not one but two local musical acts,
are you?

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Not but one active, one on a very long hiatus.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
And one of them is a Cats, the musical cover band?

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yes? And the other is Heterrophobia and the other hephobia.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, Yes, I'm I'm in. I'm in bands. I play music.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
What else do you do with your time in your life?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Well, then you know I work a lot. I like
to play magic for gathering. It's fun.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
I've seen it.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
It's my favorite for a very long time. Dungeons and
Dragons other nerd.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Ship he's a nerd. He's a nerd. Do you have
any like links or anything you want to post for
the listeners?

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Uh? Yeah, like like like a link for.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Like the music?

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah, or whatever you want, It doesn't matter your favorite
anything you want to post on. Here's the time, here's
your time to shine baby.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Oh well, your cash up?

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Your cats we'll just find a heterophobia on all the
major platforms and socials. We're pretty much everywhere. We just
made a Blue Sky nice. Yeah. I think we're kind
of trying to shift away from being so metacentric. But
we're on Spotify, we have a band camp, we're everywhere.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
They're really good, So we will absolutely be adding those
links to the show notes. So go ahead and check
out Obia. All of the dudes in that band are
just the tops. We love them, especially Breddy, who's here today.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
I love you too, bitch.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
As you've heard before, he is from the Midwest.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
I hail from the not so great state of Indiana.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
You've maybe heard of it, not many have, not many have.
The capital is Indianapolis.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Wow, did you just knew that?

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Nope?

Speaker 3 (05:03):
But anyway, one of the cool things about Brett's sorted
his sordid past is his knowledge of Belle Gunnis.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
M Yes, the hometown hero.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Hometo Ogris Ogris.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yes. There's there's not a whole lot of history that
is very relevant to Laport, Indiana. It's mostly was a
manufacturing town, but in late eighteen hundreds we had quite
the prolific black widow serial killer dun dun dumb.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
That is what we will be chatting about today. Right
after a message from our sponsor. Just kidding. They don't
sponsor us, but we did go to I was.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
Like, wait, Sarah, what you got stickers and a sponsor?

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Watch? But we did grab coffee from a local spot
close to the school. We've been there before, but we
wanted to take our boy Brett.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, it's very cute, Superstition's Java. They keep adding more
stuff to the walls, which I love, like it's becoming
a little bit more eclectic.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
I thought the coffee was delicious. The motifs inside it
was quaint kichee fun, quaint kichi fuck cozy, that's the
term cozy.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
And our versa was fabulous and I really like them.
They were sweet.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
Candice told me that their dirty chries are called slutty girls,
which yes, absolutely sent me.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
I was like at other menu online and like I
was looking for special drinks and then it popped up
and it was like slutty girl and I was like,
what the fuck' said?

Speaker 3 (06:34):
And it is my drink And you were like did
they know? How do they know?

Speaker 1 (06:38):
They named it after me?

Speaker 3 (06:41):
What did you get? Bread?

Speaker 2 (06:43):
I got old trusty for me delicious iced mocha iced mocha.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Mine's a dirty chie or a sludy girl or a
slutty girl. And then they added lavender, which.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
Is hello, yeah, that's pretty much your drink for sure.
And then Forma Can just got me a tasty Mexi mocha,
nice and spicy the way I like it.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
It's like that Kai in.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, dude, I just really love chocolate and spice and milk.
I guess well oat milk, just something about it all together.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
But anyway, thank you Brista. I didn't catch their name, but.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Thanks thanks a lot, and shout out superstitions Jabba. We will,
of course add the coffee shop link in the show
notes if you want to check it out yourself. Otherwise,
I was thinking, Brad's gonna take us through this mad
ass story.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Through the corn maze of Indiana, if you will.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
The cornmes of this story.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
There are several corn mazes in.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Indiana are the fucking epic. I bet ours are so
lame comparatively.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Honestly, you've been in one corn maze, You've been in
a lot of them. It's there's not a whole lot
of variation there.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
Well, I'm upset.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
I know, like no, because the last Cormes I went on,
there was a scavenger hunt in the corn Maze and
it was way cooler than the one off of Rock
Boulevard and with anolin farms.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
And they had a dog and they had a big
fluffy dog outside. So I just thought, I was like,
what is the dog doing in the corn man No,
there was a cat in the corn mas and the
cat caught a mouse. And we saw the cat several times.
And we saw the cat catch a mouse and fucking
play with it and then leave it to die and
are just traumatized.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
And I was like, I love that cat. I'm just
trying to follow the cat through the corn maze. Now,
It's like, this is how we die.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
He's like, haven't you seen a single horn movie?

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah? I've seen many of them, and I'm still rip me.
It's okay off for the kiddie.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
I've definitely heard some weird shit. And instead of like
being like you know, I'm out walking over towards it,
like what was that.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Curiosity? Anyways, back to Indiana.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
This story doesn't start in Indiana. Actually, it starts in Norway.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
Love It.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Bell Gunnis was born Brinhild Paul's daughter store Seth in
Norway on November eleventh, eighteen fifty nine. Growing up, she
was a sharecropper, So she grew up poor in a
town where not everyone was poor, and she did face
a lot of really cool about that and this is
relevant because it kind of like formed her worldview and

(09:19):
it kind of gave her money over everything, I must
acquire as much as I can kind of attitude because
she just needed to get out of that that life. Hm.
So she she would work on a farm as a
milkmaid and from the age of about fourteen, and in
eighteen eighty one, at the age of twenty two, she

(09:40):
finally had enough money saved up to move to America.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Okay, I mean, damn, that was actually pretty quick.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Huh. Eighteen twenty two, Well that's six years she was
working for I.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Can't We'll make no mistake about it. She was not
on like a luxury liner of any sort. Like, the
conditions on this boat were horrible. They were eating rancid
pickled herring and there was I don't know what the
nice way to say. It's because people were just kind
of like shitting everywhere. It was discussed unsanitary conditions.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yes, She's like, I don't know the nice way to
say it. People are shipping there.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
It was a ship storm.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Quite literally literally, So es on this boat, everyone's getting seasick,
drying rants and herring like it's coming out of out
of every end. You know, what are you going to do?
She did eventually land in New York, and that is
where as she was being processed, she changed her name
to Bella Uh. So she went by Bella Storseth going
forward up in Ella sor, yes, up until her second marriage.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
Fascinating.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
It's more on that in a little bit though. So
she she gets to New York and from there it's
kind of like there's not a big Scandinavian population in
New York. So she goes to where there is a
bigger Scandinavian uh population, the town of Chicago in Illinois.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Chicuckoo, not the cap it is not the capital. No Springfield,
it is Springfield.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
So in eighteen eighty four, just a couple of years
after getting to America, she marries a man named mad
Sorenson and they open a candy store. It's it's not
like just a candy store, though it's like a candy
store for like the bad kids. Like it's kind of
just a general convenience store that specialized in candy. So
you can go in there and buy like a candy
bar and a pack of cigarettes.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Okay, I like you can go get like fireworks or
some shit.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
This is just like a seven eleven to me. I
don't know for the bad kids.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, some lemons are for us bad kids probably.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
So aside from like the must acquire money over everything
else and as much of it as I can, Like,
she was kind of driven by one other thing. She
had a big desire to have children. Okay, yeah, so
uh it's not really known like how or like when
these children like came about. It's just she kind of

(11:57):
appeared with children one day and her neighbors were like
too polite to call her on it. But they're like,
we didn't even know you were pregnant. The other thing
of note for her she was she was a hefty gal.
She was like five seven and weighed north of two
hundred and fifty pounds, okay, and midwest.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
Possible she could have hid her pregnancies, yes, that's the thing.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
But then like when you do the math on the
kids' ages. In order for like the timeline to line up,
she would have had to have had two sets of twins,
like about a year and a half.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
Part whoa, Okay.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
So the general the general belief is like she either
stole or bought these children and kind of just kept
them as.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Her own or adopted.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
I don't I don't think she officially would have adopted them.
There was like no record of that, or at least
if there were, I think people would would like bring.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
That up, right, and this is what year around?

Speaker 2 (12:47):
This is eighteen eighty four, eighteen eighty.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
Four, Okay, so it's not it might be around the
time people are still selling their children because they can't
afford to keep them themselves.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Such were the time, right, two of these children died
of intestinal like inflammation, and there was the thing that happened.

(13:18):
You know, it's not known if there was any like
mal intent there.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, do you know how about how old they.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Were or they were young? It's not really like I said,
these people weren't even like people weren't even sure if
those were her kids. So like the age is kind
of vague and ambiguous, and there's no way to really
know that is where they were younger they were they
were less than like five, gotcha.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
And the thing about like the intestine information is like
it could be just the thing kids did at the time,
which is get these these like abnormalities that lead to
a child death. Or it also lines up that they
could have been poisoned.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
M gotcha. Wild. I can't imagine like somebody who wants
kids that bad poisoning them, but I mean some people
are fucked up.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Or if they get sick, maybe it's part of that whole.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
Munchausen where the mom keeps them sick so that.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
She can take so she gets all the attention.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yeah. Well, it's also long before antibiotics were commonplace, so
you know, if one of them gets some weird bacteria,
they could easily pass it to the other.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
And m hm yes. The The other thing though, that
kind of leads people to believe this could have been intentional,
was that each of those two children their deaths resulting
in a large life insurance.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
Oh motherfuck mother, mother, take it back.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
And that was that was kind of her first taste
of insurance fraud. If it were in the insurance fraud.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
Either way, it may have kind of wetted her whistle
for a life insurance pay out.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
One of them actually got second day, and then she's like,
oh shit.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
It could be that's the problem with we're going far
enough back toward like the records are.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
Not that great on gotcha especially I'm sure freagain, what'd
you call it? Laporte Indiana?

Speaker 2 (15:00):
This was in Chicago? Oh no, yeah, this this is
like the preamble to the show. So like shortly after
the life insurance so those kids paid out, the candy
store mysteriously burned.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
Down a word a word.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Like the fire marshal kind of questioned her because they
were just like, hey, like there's there's a lot of
like kerosene residue around this building. This seems like maybe
it wasn't it was an accident.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
Oh you just have a random kerosene ring around the building.
Like hello, what No, quite.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Literally, So the bell was just like, I don't know
what happened. I left to go home and make dinner,
and when I came back later, the store was on fire, and.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
She was trying to claim it was Arson.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Well no, she wasn't trying to claim it was Arson.
She was trying to claim that she didn't know what
the fuck. She didn't know what happened. It was the
fire marshal was like, this might have been arson. She's like,
I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it wasn't. I
don't know what happened though.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, and let me guess. Was there an insurance payout
for the store?

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Oh? Yeah, how did you know? See the thing is
Midwest pull and this is such a big thing. And
the fire marshal like he clearly like didn't totally believe her,
but he just he didn't want to awkwardly call her
out on it, so he was like, well, if you
say so, and.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
That's what wild.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, that's kind of what led to the payout the life.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
Just with that one sentence he talked us both into it.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
Let's go down to Chicago.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
And this would be a thing that kind of lets
her get away with a lot of what she did
throughout the course of her life.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
Well, and it's back in like the eighteen hundreds too,
so I'm sure like for them, a woman is less
likely to commit a lot of these offenses.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yeah, So in nineteen hundred and she would have been
about forty one at this time, Mads had decided to
change his life insurance policy, and being like the sensible
man he was, he didn't want there to be a
gap in coverage, so he set his new insurance policy
to kick in one day before the old insurance policy lapsed.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
Wonder who talked him into that.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
I think he just chose it on his own because
he didn't want there to be a lapse in livening shirt.
It's like, you never know what's going to happen. It's
nineteen hundred in Chicago. You know, people died pretty easily there.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Drop dead walking down the street to your job.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
But here's the thing, walking down the walkway. There was
one day because of all this that both policies were active,
and that was on July thirtieth and nineteen hundred. You
want to take a wild stab? Is what happened to
Mad's that day?

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Did he get stabbed?

Speaker 2 (17:32):
He didn't get.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
Sabb actually, but he did die.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Mad Sore instance, Yes, on July thirtieth, nineteen hundred, died
of a cerebral hemorrhage. Bro Belle explained that he had
come home with a headache and she had provided him
with some quinine powder for the pain, and she kind
of left him alone to rest, and then he like
later she went to go check on him and he
was just dead in bed, just drop dead.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Huh.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Didn't know what happened, But because of the day in
which he died, she was able to collect on both
of the policies to the tune of five thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Wowns, dude, of what is that in today's money?

Speaker 2 (18:12):
Off the top of my head, I don't know if
you want to fact check it, feel free, but at
this point in time, this is two child life insurance payouts,
a probably fraudulent fire insurance payout, and now two life
insurance payouts from her first husband's death. So she has
just been kind of stacking bills all on fraudulent claims,

(18:32):
as it were.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Okay, I got a number for you, give me the number,
one hundred and sixty dollars.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
That sounds about right. Okay, So she's kind of making
a living just on horrible things happening to her, sadly,
and not through any intentional malfeasance of her own part. Yeah,
at this point, it's fire inshurts payout, two children, and
two policies from one husband, and she's collected on every

(19:00):
single one of them.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah, but it's just happy happenstance.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
Definitely, nothing she's done.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
No, I'm not shitty at all, not suspiciously normal.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
Well, after the death of her dearly departed husband, she
decides to go to Minnesota, which that tracks because Minnesota's
got an even higher population of Scandinavian people. And that's
that's kind of the thing with her life is she's
mostly just trying to hang around with other Norwegian people.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
It's like a kind of like a cultural thing, like
she just.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Kind of one I think. So she was in her
early twenties when she came to America and then she
spent the next twenty years just kind of hanging out
with Scandinavians, not necessarily like just Norwegian people, but I
think probably Finnish and Swedish people as well, gotcha.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
I'm assuming that there would be some sort of if
they knew her last name, they know the people that
she's associated with, her family or whatever, there'd probably be
more opportunities in that same culture group exactly.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, and then there's a lot less of like a
language gap, so like just from a practical standpoint, you
kind of hang out with the people you can communicate
with easily, right, makes sense. There was no Google Translate
at the time, of course, whack I know. So she's
in Minnesota for a while and like it, it's kind

(20:20):
of fishy, like if he as to what like was
going on there, But it seemed like she was kind
of just getting bored out there and she missed the
farm life to an extent. Okay, So she still had
a bunch of this insurance money stashed away and she
uses it to buy a farm in Laport, Indiana.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
All right, now we're in Laport, Now.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
We're getting there. So she moves to Indiana. It's sometime
between nineteen harder and nineteen oh two. I think it
was around sometime in nineteen oh one. But she married
a man named Peter Gunnis in nineteen oh two. Peter
had been prior married. Not a whole lot is known
about his past relationship, but he did come into his

(20:59):
marriage Belle having an infant daughter and like young teen
aged daughter named Jenny.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
Okay, and he was from Indiana.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yes, okay, Yes, so he married her, well, she married him,
they married each other, they got married, they got married, yes,
and they have this farm in Laport, Indiana.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
And they have the two kids.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yes, and they have those two kids, and then Belle
still has two kids of her own, right.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
The two that didn't die, Yes, got it.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Whether or not they're actually her kids, no one really knows.
But probably not been.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
On this farm that they grow corn.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
A dog, I don't.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
They weren't really in the It wasn't really like a
crop farm. It was the livestock farm. So, okay, she
had a hog pen. I think she had some ghosts,
probably a couple of cows, but I think she mostly
was raising hog there.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Oh, always hog farm.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
It's always a damn hog.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
Farm still to this day. It's mostly cattle and hogs.
That's that's the livestock that's kind of raised in northern Indiana.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yeah, So they get married in nineteen oh two, and
the following week, Peter's like has to spend like a
day or two like going off on some business and
while Bell is there alone with all the kids, his
infant daughter would die under Bell's care, and no one
really knows. There's not any information really on that that death. Like,

(22:26):
but I mean a week after the marriage, it's it's
not looking good. It's at this point it's starting to
seem like perhaps she like likes the idea of having kids,
but kids just annoy her really badly, Like you know,
you have a baby and it just won't stop crying.
So then what are you gonna do?

Speaker 3 (22:41):
Apparently in her case, she murders them.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yeah. Well, it's also worth noting that, like at like
throughout her life, her neighbors and like people knew her
would say she she did have like quite the temper.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
Oh well, that's frightening.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, Like when people whenever anyone would kind of question
her on like things, where like her neighbors would be like,
where'd those kids come from? She would kind of get
a little snappy about it and just.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
Be like, none of your fucking business, Like.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
That's really none of your business? Is it their mine?
I had them, Where do you think they came from?
And she would just like gesture to herself or something.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
I don't know, gestures wildly exactly.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Okay. After eight months of marital bliss to Peter Gunnis,
he succumbed to death via a skull.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Injury eight months.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
They were married for about eight months.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Jesus, She's like, all right, I don't know, let me guess.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
Uh. He had a life insurance policy.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
You'd be surprised he had one, and she got a
payout for three thousand dollars for it.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Oh, I'm not surprised. This is I'm not surprised. Face.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
He died of blunt porce trauma to the head, and
when asked about what happened, she had just said he
was reaching for something high up on a shelf and
accidentally knocked over the meat grinder that just kind of
fell down and blopped him on the head.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
A whole meat grinder fell off and bumped him.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Well, the thing is like a lot of meat grinders
aren't like that heavy to the point where like it
probably could have fallen off the shelf. But also me
granders aren't heavy enough to like kill you if they
just fall off a shelf from like a foot up,
like it would hurt a lot and you probably have
the lump and a concussion, but it's like enough to
like kill you just from a dating you on the head.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
It makes you wonder too, like how good forensics were
back then. I can't imagine they were great and the
poor Indiana, but.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
They're still big never mind.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, good point, Candae, finish my sentence. No, but I
either we were all picking up what you were putting,
smelling what you were.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
I mean, forensic anthropology is still a field that's not
in its infancy, but there's still new methods and techniques
being used every year.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
I'm gonna need you to pack the wife, pack the kids,
and go figure out what the fuck happened to be.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
So she gets three thousand dollars, which would be around
h hundred thousand dollars in today dollars, give her take
from Peter's death. So she's living on this farm. She
just got another insurance payout, and she's got her two kids,
one more kid of Peter's.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
The teenager.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yes, and she's occasionally like, because she's running this farm,
you know, so she's occasionally hiring farm hands who would
live in the house because they're doing like the work there.
That was pretty common of farm housing there, and it's
like it's common on ranches now too. If you work
for the ranch, they'll probably house.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
You just to make it's not usually in the house,
right a ranch house.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Well, yeah, but I mean I think back in the
eighteen hundreds, it was kind of like there's several spare
bedrooms in the house. To just take one.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Oh interesting, okay.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah, So at Peter'spineral Bell was like it was said
that she was making like an overly exaggerative, like shit
display of it, like she was putting on a spectacle.
She was moaning. She would like scream and just wail
like why Peter, why, and like as she would cover
her her eyes. She it was noted that she'd like,

(26:04):
on multiple occasions, would like open her eyes a little
bit like peek out to make sure people were like
watching it. Weird. Yeah, so like that's why everyone was like,
she's clearly putting on an act, but the Midwestern nice
it always saves her because people aren't calling her out
on it.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Like every they're like, everyone grieves differently.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
It's okay, yeah, I guess, Oh my god. Oh so
they pretty much knew she was faking it at this point.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
At the very least, they knew that that her her
despair probably wasn't genuine. You know, they'd suss that much
out at least, you know, it's hard to say, like, oh,
she clearly murdered her husband, but it's like, hmm, don't
think she was that sad about it. At the very least, gotcha,
and she lays low for a pear. She's kind of

(26:52):
just running the farm. But in nineteen oh five, she
starts placing ads in various Norwegian newspapers, usually around Chicago
for husband, look for mail suitors, and she basically used
them to like she's like honeypotting with it. She's saying like,
I'm on, I am of Norwegian, like stock, I have
this beautiful farm in Indiana. And she ends it with triflers,

(27:13):
need not apply.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
Ooh, She's like, don't want no scrubs.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
No trifle aus bitches on this phone.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Basically yeah, so she's basically saying like, don't waste my time,
like hit me up, let's do this thing. And she
definitely would paint it like I'm living alone on here,
my husband is dead, come be probably my new husband,
question mark, we could run this farm together, like it's
it's a pretty sick gig. She's painting here, so like
people would like hit her up. The postman said that

(27:42):
she would get upwards like ten letters a day from
these things.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
Wild. So at this point, do you think, like you personally,
do you think she was starting to kind of run
low on funds.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
I think that's exactly what it was. You know. It's
because she moves to Indiana and she's kind of living
for like a couple of years just on the insurance money.
She's in Minnesota, and then she moves Indiana marries this guy,
and then about eight months into it, she made it
eight months with this guy, and as far as I
can tell, that's about the longest she would make it

(28:14):
with a guy. Like from there on out. She had
like a nineteen year marriage to Mads. And then that's
when she probably just got sick of it and was like,
here's my opportunity, Like I could see it now, like
there's two there's two policies on old Mads. Like sounds
like someone has to die.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
That day, right, I feel like that's exactly what happened.
She was like, well, that's convenient timing.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't think it was necessarily like
a plotted thing. It was just like, oh, you mean,
if he were to die today, I would get two payouts.
Someone needs a cerebral hemorrhage, I guess. And that's kind
of like just the like a bit of a cold calculation,
but not like a long premeditation.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Right, I mean, it makes sense like once you know, yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
Like it definitely isn't like a heat of the moment thing,
at least with Mads, and it probably it probably could
have been with Peter, like just she just got sick
of him, or it could have been that, Like no
one really knows how profitable this farm was. It could
have just been could have just been running in the
red and she was kind of slowly losing her stock.

(29:16):
And Peter wasn't known to have come through too much money,
like you had enough to seem like a suitable husband.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
Do they know how she killed Mads? A cerebral hemorrhage,
but she had given him something for a headache, right,
and yeah, we think that that's what caused it. Do
they have any guesses on what that could have been?

Speaker 2 (29:49):
She said it was quinine. No, Like people aren't really
sure because.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
I'm trying to imagine you can get a cerebral image
through like a physical knocked the head, right.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
Uh, It's known as a brain hemorrhage. It's a type
of stroke that occurs when a blood vessel in the
brain burster league.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
So, but yeah, head trauma can cause it as well.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
There it is head trauma. That's the word so I'm
just I was just curious if maybe she could have
she could be using because this now Paul Peter Peter
was was the second husband got bumped in the head.
Is yeah for sure.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
And like I said, she's five seven nor the two fifty.
She can take a man in like turn of this
turn of the twentieth century, like.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
America, good Norwegian sturdy stock.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
Exactly like she she was built enough to where she
could overpower men.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
That's wild. So there's a chance this could be her pattern. Okay, continue, So.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
I think one of her one of the first, like
one of the first answerings as far as people are
really aware of, was this Wisconsin farmhand by the name
of Henry gerholdt Uh. After her traveling to Laporte, he
wrote his family saying that he liked the farm, he
was in good health, and he was requesting they sent
him some seed potatoes. And then that was the last

(31:08):
they would ever hear from him. Oh no, Yeah, he
kind of just abruptly stopped conding. He's like, yeah, I'm
liking it. Here, send me some potatoes. And then like
they probably sent a message back and has never heard
from him again.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
That's wild.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
So after a while they started just trying to contact
Gunnis herself, and she told him that he had gone
off with horse traders to Chicago, like you do of course. Yeah.
And this is something also that like the Midwest nice
would get in, get in the way of people, kind
of like calling her on her bullshit again. But she
did keep his trunk and his fur overcoat.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
Oh how convenient.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yeah, so she kept all this stuff. And she was like, uh,
he went to Chicago. I haven't seen him since.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
They never legally got married though, No, okay.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
She doesn't get married again, Peter Peter Gunnis was the
last time she gets married.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
So from here on out, her life is just a
long list of honey pointing people and banging farm hands
on the side.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
What a what a wild sentence that.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
Was no, no, no, no, no no yees. So it's
like she would call these guys or not call them.
She would penpal these people for a long time, and
like there was John mo of Minnesota who answered NAD
nineteen oh six, and they would correspond for several months
h and at. Basically after a while, she would just
kind of be like, come on, come to the farm,
bring all your money. You don't need to leave anything there.
This is going to be your new home, you know.

(32:25):
So uh Moe John Mo. He traveled the port like
after he withdrew like all of his money, he sold
his his house, he got all his cash. He goes
to little Port. No one ever sees him again.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
A carpenter who did occasional work for Gunnis served that
most trunk remained in her house though, like along with
about a dozen others.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
A dozen other trunks.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah. So she just gets these guys here and then
they disappear, But for some reason, they always just happened
to leave all their stuff there, like just trunks full
of like clothes, jewelry, possessions, like like your worldly possessions,
like even sentimental stuff that doesn't necessarily have monetary value.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
It's just left with Yeah, this woman.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yeah, so she's got like this room in our house
that is just kind of starting to get filled with
all these men's stuff.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
That's insane fing scary, dude.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
I'm just wondering why would she keep them in the house.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah, so that's all for property.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking, since she was
a serial killer, is that her trophy is her trophy room,
their trunks and she can go through all their shit
and be.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Like, that's that's entirely possible, Like.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Old John Moe was back there.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah, exactly. So here's where that Midwest and nice gets
in the way again, Like she's starting to contradict herself
at this point. Are people would ask her like, what
happened that John Mo guy? And sometimes she would say, oh,
he went back to Minnesota. You know, I don't know
what happened if we went there, or then other people
she would be like, he went to the Iowa's World's Fair,
said he'd be back in a couple of weeks. I
don't know. He never came back.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
So she started getting her lies confused.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Yeah, but still at this point, it's like you don't
really know who she's saying which lie to and whether
or not those people are like connecting these dosing. Hey,
what does she tell you?

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Oh, I'm sure they're all gossiping. Oh, I'm sure they're
all gossiping.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
Well he could have been, but it's it's like it's
kind of starting to get to that point that where
people are just like, you know, I don't know what
happened to that guy. She said this to me, but
this to to someone else.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
Yeah, was she getting the lies for different men? Confused?

Speaker 2 (34:30):
I don't think so she could have. There there's at
least two dozen men, like at least fourteen victims, but
as many as forty that she likes. Oh yeah, So
there's Johon Mo, There's Henry Gerhold, George Barry of Tuscole, Illinois.
He went to Laporte with fifteen hundred dollars in his
pocket after telling people who was looking for a job

(34:52):
and possibly marriage. He goes to Laporte never seen again.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Oh man, damn. And this is her way of like
kind of flying. We're under the radar, instead of marrying
all of these men, yes, and dealing with the legal
documentation of having like the.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
Actual paper trail attached pay Petralia exactly.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
So she's like, yeah, just bring your cash.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
When people say black widow, sometimes it's like one or
two guys, this is like the most true. Did you
say forty?

Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, that's what you're saying. Almost upwards of forty said
at least two dozen, or said at least twelve confirmed.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Fourteen upwards of forty though enough true praying mantistob like
she's a whole new level.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
Yeah, she's she is like top tier black widow for
lack of a better term, Like she she's doing it
hard and like that's what Like the farm was like
so good at it was such an alluring like like
web for her to just kind of way the trap
would be like I got this farm, come on out.
And oftentimes she would tell them like don't tell anyone
where you're going. That there's no reason to let your

(35:51):
family know where you're going, which is like also suspicious
red flug.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
Yeah, guys, if you hear that somebody's enticing you with land.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
I'm alostore trying to get away from her family. I
guess that's true.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
So she's kind of just doing this and she's telling
them like, come on down, give me all the money.
Sometimes they wouldn't show up, like with all the money
that they said they would have, like through Penn Palace.
She would kind of sniff out how much they had.
If they're just like, oh, I have about three thousand
dollars worth of stuff. If they show up with fifteen
hundred dollars, she'd tell her. She'd tell them to go
back and get the rest and then come back. To
her with all of it, and.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
They would that's wild.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
They would go back grab the rest of whatever money
they that they had, like said, I have this much,
and then just dip out, like go back to the
laporte never seen again.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
Wow, thought's crazy. Well, I mean, like you said, the
deal was enticing to be basically part owner of this
huge ranch that I'm sure looked very profitable. She looked
rich as hell. Yeah, I can see why people would
be enticed by that.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
So, like I think a lot of the thought is
like she would do this and then just kill the
guys for money, and like that would be what she
lived on. But that's why people think this farm probably
was not profitable.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
But I'm sure it looked that way.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah, yeah, like it looked like a good enough farm.
Like she'd go out, she'd work, she would hire guys
to come help work the farm. And that's kind of
where Ray lamp Fear comes in. He was probably the
longest tenured farm hand that she had, and so of
course they they would jostle between the sheets. Ray kind
of like developed a bit of like an infatuation with her,

(37:26):
like he was kind of like Belle. I don't know
why all these guys got to keep coming here, you
got me, and he would like get jealous about it,
and she.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
Was just sleeping with him and stuff, and yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
That's the thing. She was sleeping with him and none
of these other guys. They would just show up and
then they would be gone. And like that's why people
like they don't know if like what extent his involvement was.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
Well, because I was thinking that same thing, like, yeah,
she's two fifty five to seven, but at this point
she's older, right, she's like what fifty almost h Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
She's in her like early mid forties around now.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
Okay, so she's getting older. I can't imagine it would
be easy for her to dispose of these bodies alone,
because I mean lugging around a dude dead weight. Literally,
it's it's hard, it's freaking heavy. I wouldn't know, Oh well,
some of us now because we were the funeral.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Home if you were to haul entire bodies. But we'll
we'll have more on that in a little bit.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
Okay, Okay, maybe it's only half a body. I was
about to ask Dorothea Poin says, that's what this reminds
me of.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Yeah, so like a lot of people wonder though, like
why Ray lamp here, Like why didn't he ever ever
get the acts right? As it were?

Speaker 3 (38:44):
She had to have been useful for something exactly.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
But it also was worth worth noting she outside of
Peter Like, she didn't kill anyone from Laporte. She mostly
like had like a don't don't ship where you eat
policy in regards to the murder. I think I think
a lot of that was due to, like, it's not
so suspicious when random Norwegian man from three hundred miles
away disappears, but it is suspicious when you know long

(39:07):
standing someone in a family of a farm that's just
right down the road he disappears, and it's like, well,
we all know him and he wouldn't do this. But
they can't really say that about any of these Norwegian guys.
They're just coming in from like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois right well.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
And I feel like she does have quite a larger
pickens of richer folks as long as they're not from Laporte,
because any rich person that is in Laporte probably knows
her and his family knows her already. It would be
very difficult, I think, to cover your trail.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah, exactly, I'm wondering if these ads have like pictures
of her too. I would love to see her wonted
ads for these men.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
I don't know if they would ever have like pictures.
There's a couple of photos of her that exist, but
not many, so I don't think these ads necessarily would.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
Have That's what I'm saying. So she's probably I don't
know if she's cute, just such as an ogress. So
she's a part of it, like them coming in and
not being what she says she is too, I don't know,
a little bit of deception, possibly a little bit of deception.
Did you look her up?

Speaker 3 (40:12):
What's your last name again?

Speaker 2 (40:13):
It's Gunnis g u n e ss.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
Shouldn't do that. I don't know. It's hard for my brain.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
It's okay, we've all had long days. Yes, facts, So
in nineteen oh six, this is just six years after
after mads is murdered. That's when hit her adopted daughter,
Jenny Peter's daughter. That's when she goes and disappears. Happened

(40:40):
to her? Jenny no, when asked what happened to her,
she was just she went off to California, of.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
Course, like you do.

Speaker 3 (40:47):
Yeah, just so she kept Jenny for how many years
before offering her?

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Uh So she married Peter in nineteen oh two and
it was in nineteen oh six, so four years. So
Jenny was around she was adopted. She's like, I think
she's around like fifteen to seventeen somewhere in there, and
like not quite adult age though I think around in
nineteen hundred, like it probably she probably would have been
considered like a young adult by then, I think. So

(41:11):
she just went to California according to Belle, but a
lot of people suspect that what had happened was she
started getting wise to the act and maybe stumbled upon
the room that like she was probably told like, hey,
don't go in there. It was either the room with
all the trunks or.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Bodies or what happened upon it when it was happening.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
So there's a root seller too that as a little
side note here that she like forbade any of the
kids they ever go into. And there was one time
that her two youngest kids that were like hers quote unquote,
they kind of got near there and Belle just like
stopped them before they could get in because it was
locked or whatever, and she just beat them so badly,
like just like I do not ever go in there,

(41:52):
like just retribution for that. So it's like people think
that Jenny maybe either stumbled upon the cellar, saw that
it was probably covered in blood and various various body
parts what have you, Probably not too many body parts,
because she seemed to have a fancying of disposing of
the bodies in either in the outhouse like in the

(42:13):
latrine dugout for the outhouse, or just under the hog pen.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
I wasn't gonna say a pickpen. Does she feeding up
to the pigs, because that.

Speaker 3 (42:19):
Would make a lot of sense. Although I'm so sorry,
I know you just said this, but how old.

Speaker 4 (42:23):
Was she was?

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Like a teenager, like fifteen to seventeen, probably.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Okay, when I was fifteen to seventeen, a little rebellious me. No,
I would want to know what was in that cellar.
I wouldn't want to get in there.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Well, imagine this, like you're her, your dad's been dead
for four years, your adopted stepmom just keeps having all
these guys show up and then they disappear like a
week later.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
You're curus cures.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Yeah, like these guys they never lasted more than a week.
But there was one guy named Andrew Helgellian, and he
was the recipient of possibly the worst assault. Of all
of the bodies that were found, his was the only
one that seemed to have diff defensive wounds. Oh no, yeah,
so it was kind of like there wouldn't be many

(43:05):
defensive wounds. So the general thought was like she had
a long standing, like possible history of like poisoning in
slow doses, kind of like getting them weak enough to
where she could just kind of beat him to death
with a hammer or an axe or what have you.
But he was, he was he was the only one
who was like butchered with like clear defensive wounds on
like his arm, like he was holding his arm up to.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Be like hey, oh my god.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
And what it happened with him was he comes rolling
up to town. And this was after months and months
of her trying to convince him to show up, and
he would just kind of be like, I don't know.
And then eventually she just hits him with like like
the the swing for the pencil, and she was like, well,
I guess if you're not gonna come whatever, I'm not
gonna try anymore. And that's finally what kind of got
him convinced to be like, okay, I'll come. So he

(43:48):
comes showing up with three grand in collectible deposits, so
it's not cash and she can't do anything with these.
He has to cash them, so he takes them to
the bank and they're like, it's gonna be about a
week and then your money will be ready, and like
this is people think that it's just Belle was just
super impatient about this. She was pissed that she had
to wait for it. Normally, it's like one or two days,
the guy's gone, she never sees them again. She's got

(44:10):
all their money, so it's like they wait all week
and then eventually comes the day Bell goes and gets
the money. And then that night was the night that
he was just murdered, and it was like the most
violent of any of her murders. Normally, it seems as
though like she wasn't horribly violent with them.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
Do you think that she would attack them while they
were sleeping, or if she maybe used something to knock
them out first.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
That was the general consensus is because there was one
guy that said he woke up to just see her
like hovering over him, just watching him, and when he
was like, what are you doing? She like kind of
just scurried out of the room.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
Fucking no sleep for al Sistemon Bell Gunnis got nightmare, nightmare, nightmare.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (44:51):
Okay, so she would normally get them. Do you think
this one was particularly vicious because she was pissed at
him from making her wait.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
And it works so hard to get her out there.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Yeah. It was like she like months and months of
just trying to lure this man and then he shows
up and he doesn't even have the money ready. Yeah,
I'm imagining she's like blood boiling the day he gets
after and she finds out it's not a giant water cast.
So she's just simmering for like a whole week waiting
for this money, just like man, just stop it around
the house. And then it's she kind of just let

(45:24):
it all out in one giant blast of rage. As
soon as she got the money.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
She's like, oh, Chris, I can see why they call
her no Chris, all right, horrible that poor man, yea,
all these poor men.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
But the good thing is uh, hell, Jellian fortunately did
tell someone where he was going. Normal, Like I said,
normally she would be like, don't tell anyone you're coming here.
It's our little secret. Just run away, and like, if
you tell people where you're going, they're gonna try to
stop you from coming here, and they won't leave us alone.
Let's just have this quiet life together. So like she
would make it sound like a pretty sweet deal, and

(45:56):
like she would be able to convince these guys like,
oh yeah, maybe I shouldn't tell where I'm going. And
that's why I like, that's how she was also able
to get away with because a lot of these guys
just wouldn't tell anyone where they were going.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
That's wild. But this guy, I mean, he was already hesitant,
so I can I can see him being like, Yo,
here's where I'm going. If something happens to me. This
crazy bitch did it just in case, here's my location
drop a pin.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
Oh no, So this is January of nineteen oh eight
is when when he gets he gets chopped, So it's uh.
He actually tells his brother like, Hey, I'm going to Laporte, Indiana.
I'm gonna be with this lady named Belle. Just in
case anything happens, that's where I am. Okay, so he telled.

(46:39):
He tells his brother, uh Azel this and he had
contacted Belle after he stopped hearing from his brother Andrew,
and he wasn't one for the Midwest niceties that like
everyone else was. And she was just like, oh, I
don't know, he just disappeared, and he's just like bullshit, lady,
Like he went to you and then I stopped hearing
from him. The last thing he said was he was
at your phone. That was the last bit of communication

(47:01):
I got was like two days after he got to
your place. Where did he go? And she's like, I
don't know. He's like all right thenks. So he like
rolls up. Good. He I think they were from like
New York or something. Yeah, they weren't from there, but
he was in New York and his brother was there too,
that's where they lived prior to that. So he comes
rolling up and.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
You know new Yorker's they don't get a a fuck dog.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
No shit. So he gets there in April of nineteen
oh eight, but he gets there too late because just
a few weeks before he had, uh, before he arrived,
the farm had burned down. What burn down?

Speaker 3 (47:36):
How did she fucking know?

Speaker 2 (47:38):
So that he was kind of starting to come down because.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
Well, because he was corresponding with her and asking her
questions even probably like I'm gonna come looking for my brother.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
But like local people had kind of also started figuring out,
like then, like you know now that you mention it
over these last few years, this is only like eight
years by the way, from the time that Mads dies
till now. It's only like eight years that she's doing
this stuff, and only six of it's at the farm.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
So if the true count is forty, we're talking five
a year then.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
Yeah, something like that. So people like are finally starting
a piece of Together's like, you know, it's kind of
weird that all these people show up and then it's
like no one ever sees them again. Like we all
hear about these guys arriving in town, but when was
the last time you heard about one of these Norwegian
guys leaving?

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Yeah, no one's seen them leave, but just get here
and then they're gone.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Yeah, it's like we all saw him show up at
the train station in town, but like Bell said, he
just dipped out in the middle of the night. And
it's weird that that's like the fifth guy that's happened
to So like people are starting to connect the dots here.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
Okay, so she started feeling she's feeling the pressure at
this point.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
Yeah, so that's why she goes to town on the
day up and she like gets a giant thing of kerosene,
and then she is also like, you know, if anything
happens to me, I think it's Ray lamb fear. He's
really upset that I had that I haven't agreed to
marry him.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
She tried to blame it on Ray.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
She tried to blame it on Ray. Any Wow, it worked.
So when the the farm burns down and they find
a body, they find several bodies. There's I think she's
got four kids at this point, and they're all found
next to each other covered in the remains of a quill.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
God damn it.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
People know. The police that arrived and they were kind
of sussin at what had occurred. They were like, well,
clearly Belle was trying to save them from the fire,
which I think people have kind of discerned that it
was she covered them all and then lit the fire.
There was also another body that they attributed to Bell,
but this body conveniently did not have a head, and
the only thing that made people think like, oh it

(49:33):
is Bell. Is that she has a pretty distinctive bridgework,
which I've never had bridgework done, but I guess it's
pretty like if a dental person were to see, like
he could be like, oh, yeah, that's Bell's I did
that to her two years ago.

Speaker 3 (49:45):
I have a question. Did you just say the body
didn't have a head.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Did not have a head, but there was bridge work there,
So it's like she like yaned her like dental workout
and just left it near the scene.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
Holy shit, So the head was gone, but the bridgework
was there.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
Yeah, and that's why people were like, well, that's Bell's
bridge work, So that's probably Bell's body. Don't know where
the heath went. Fuck, and people they blamed it on Ray.
They were like, you burned the farmhouse down. He had
an alibi though, and the shitty thing is like the
albi ended up working against him because they get they
charged him with burning down the house and they charged
him with the murder of like Bell and her kids.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Jesus.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
His alibi was that he was he was like shacked
up with an older like black woman in town and
he liked him older. So then when they asked the
lady like Hey, was he with you that night? She
was like, yeah, he was with me. We were up
all night like having sex. That actually hurt him, like
in court because people were like, the black lady's vouching

(50:37):
for you, and Indiana sadly is like the most northern
southern state.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
Yeah, so like that.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
Hurt his alibi, and he got convicted of the arson,
but not of the murders, so he went to jail anyway.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
Holy shit, dude.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
She laid the trap. She went to town the day
that the farm burned down.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
She didn't flip on her ass.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
That's why people think maybe he wasn't in on it.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
He didn't know.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
It down. I wasn't even at the farm that night.
I was shacked up with old girl down the road.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
And they were like, we hate black people.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
So basically was what happened.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
You're going down.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
So all of this happens while al hell Gellian is
like heading to town to be like where's my brother?
And he rolls up and they're like, the gun is farm,
that's where you want to go. That place burned down
a few weeks ago.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
Holy shit, dude.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Imagine and Belle and her kids died in the fire.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
Quote unquote died in the fire.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Where is she?

Speaker 1 (51:32):
Where'd she go?

Speaker 2 (51:33):
Well, he wasn't one for like kind of like just
taking it lying down. So he kind of starts going
around town and just investigating as much as he can,
and he's like, well, let's see if maybe any of
the old farm hands that used to work at that
farm can have some information for me. So he's going
around asking, He's like, were there any like soft depressions
where maybe like someone could have dug a big hole

(51:55):
back in like April or so on that farm. And
one of the farmers like, you know, yeah, there was
actually so like the old barman took him there and
they dug they like dug in this little depression where
it looked like a whole had been dug and then
filled in. And the a gunny sack was found in
there that can take two hands, two feet and one head,
which which he recognized to be that of his brother.

(52:17):
It was like there was like a mark on the
neck of the head. He was like, that was a birthmark,
and that's how he knew. So then now upon a
medians in inspection of the site, they found that there
were like dozens of these like depressions.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
Do you know how deep they were?

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Not very deep, like just a couple of feet, but
they all were like decapitated body, arms, legs. Like she
would butcher these bodies, which would make sense, Like she
runs a livestock fororm, so she's probably got a pretty
good grasp on like how to butcher a body. Sure, Yeah,
so she's like dismembering these people, and that's maybe how
she was able to do it by herself. If she

(52:54):
did it by herself.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
Well, she'd still have to move the body from where
she killed them, which I'm assuming would be in a
bed down to the cellar where we think the dismemberment occurred, right, yes, okay.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
And then from there she would chop put them in
a gunnysack over the shoulder probably and just haul them out.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
Yeah, maybe will barrowm and start just burying them in
these shallow graves.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Yeah, so she buries them in the hog pens. She
buries them like literally under the outhouse where it's like
who's ever gonna check the ship like the shithole.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
You know, nobody wants to, that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Exactly. So she's got she's got it all figured out.
You But Eventually they're like they kind of realized, like
maybe that wasn't Bell's body. Maybe she just took a
different body of someone who had a similar statue to
her and then ripped out her bridgework and just disappeared
with the money.

Speaker 3 (53:42):
I wonder likely story. It's a it's a woman, right, yes,
but it's not the same stature or anything as that
teenage girl Jenny.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
No, okay, And I think that's kind of they never
quite figured out who that was. But it's that was
possibly the only like local quote unquote.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
Murder that she would have decapitated, just body. So it's
a the head was decapitated, it's just the body of
a woman with the bridgework. Fucking my thrown that's so lazy,
I'm sorry. But also damn.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
Dude, also like what the fire just burned off the head?

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Dude, Like what does your skull?

Speaker 3 (54:24):
Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
Okay, So that's what gets Ray lamb Fear off of
the murder charge, but they still convict him of ourson.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
That's crazy. Didn't she go by Kerosene? Wasn't that scene?

Speaker 2 (54:36):
But they're like, you you got bowged for by a
black lady, Like, we don't trust a word you say. Now,
so we don't think you did the kill him, but
you might have lit the fire.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
Holy shit, dude.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
Yeah. So he he gets convicted of that, and I
think he does the time for that. I don't I
don't know what happened to him after he went to
jail for that, but he like did the sentence. Wow.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
And then so now al what's the brother's name, ale
uh at Ale. So now angle's there in town, he's
trying to figure out what the fuck's going on.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
He finds these bodies, yeah, and it's well, like with him,
it was after that first one. He's like, yeah, that's
my brother. Because he was he was able to be
like it would have been around this time that he
was here. And they're like, well, yeah, there was a
whole dug like.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
It's a fresh hoole, yeah, freshoman.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
They dug the hole right there, and he's like, that's
my brother. So after that he didn't really have any
business in Laporte. It was like, I wanted to find
out where my brother was. I found out. I guess
I'll go back home.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
Now, okay. So he just like turned that information over
to the police and then they started their basically.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Yeah, no, he like him and the farm man find
the body and they're like hmm. So then the police
they get called up and they're like, well, let's go
check out all these other like fresholes that are conveniently
around this hog pen, and they start digging and that's
when they uncover it, and they find like dozens of bodies,
and like since they were all butcher and stuff, it
was kind of hard to figure out like to tally
up just how many there were, but they think it

(55:55):
was upwards of forty.

Speaker 3 (55:57):
Oh my god, So they think it was upwards of forty.
They have the body ease, but they just couldn't convict,
like the only fourteen were ever confirmed, Like what's identities?
Is that?

Speaker 1 (56:06):
Right?

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Uh? Yeah? More or less, Like there was enough bodies
here to where they thought maybe Belle didn't even do
any of it and it was just a spot to
where the Chicago mob was like dumping bodies. But I
don't buy that though, because it's it's like early ninety hundreds,
Like they don't have cars. It's it's still a solid
like hours and a half's drive to get to Chicago
from report driving on a horse. That's like several days wild.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
It makes you wonder. I mean, it's I feel like
five a year is not that many, especially she's only
basically they're there for two days and then they're gone.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
M Yeah, it's enough to kind of fly under the
raider obviously for that long and it seems reasonable.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Yeah, just a little and they were all male, right.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Yeah, just a little top up of the funds.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
Wow, holy shit? Yeah, so did they ever?

Speaker 2 (56:52):
They never found her, and like they don't know what
happened to her. She more than likely just dipped out
west to where she could not be recognized by people
because at this point, like people in the Midwest, like
they're familiar with the lady, Like she does have a
photo circulating around now, So she goes west, probably like California,
that's what they suspect, but she's never heard from again.
So I think at that point she kind of realizes, like,

(57:14):
I just need to lay low and not do anything.

Speaker 3 (57:16):
Can I be honest? I feel like because of the time,
she could have changed her name and went right back
to doing the same shit but being more cautious about
how she picks absolutely and just moving every couple of years,
and she would be fine.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
That is a theory, like they suspect that maybe she
learned from this and realize like, hmm, I got a
little close to the sun on that one, and she
would be like people would like accuse her of like
various similar murders over the years, like over decades, and
at that point she would be like in her mid sixties.
It's the nineteen twenties, and like there's a double homicide
in LA where someone gets hacked up, and they're like,

(57:49):
that was Belle Gunnis at this point, like no one
would even be able to recognize.

Speaker 3 (57:54):
Her, you know, Yeah, Well, and I do wonder like
there has to come a certain point where you just
have to stop because physically, I was.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Going to say, your body can't handle anymore, but I.

Speaker 3 (58:05):
I it seems like she was hell bent on getting
money and if this was the easiest way for her
to get.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
It by any means necessary, WHOA.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
I can see her trying to continue it. So, Brett,
do you think that she survived that fire?

Speaker 2 (58:21):
I think she definitely survived the fire staged. I don't
think that was her at all.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
They follow up question, yes, did they find the remains
of Jenny? Do they find any like sub adult remains?
That were female her male at that point.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Let me let me let me see here. I don't
think they ever did find her remains are released. They
didn't connect the dots. At the time.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
I was like, hopefully Jenny was out in California for real,
just live in her life.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
You never know. But yeah, so she she goes on
this rampage for like several years after committing various assurance
frauds over a nineteen year marriage, and then she just disappears.
They don't know what happened to the body as far
as they know, Like she just quietly lived out her days,
possibly killing again. I don't know. Maybe she's still around

(59:15):
to this day.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Don't fuck.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
I'm like trying to do the mathemall.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
She really looks like an ogress right now now.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
She was she was born just a couple of years
before the Civil Wars started.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
She's out there with Elvis and what Tupac.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
All listen to Tupac and Bell Gunness Eliston, Tupac will
be miserable. Yeah, that's that's a fucking crazy story. When
I talked to you before, you said that there was
like a museum in.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Yes so so in Laport, Indiana. It's in Laporte County
and at the laport County Museum, which is in laport Indiana,
Like there's an entire like a fourth of this place
is dedicated just to Belgunnas.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
In the story of her, I love it, Let's go.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
She's like a like the cryptid of.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Oh, you know, growing up, everyone hears about Bell Gunns.
Like at some point you take the field trip to
the museum and you walk through and you see, like
if you love like the earlier like tractors that were
made at the Alice Chalmers plant. That was kind of
another big thing report was known for it, Like it
was a tractor factory. Town around the same it was
Farmland tractor factory. But yeah, no, Bell Gunnis was like

(01:00:23):
the big thing the city.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Was the Indiana Ogress.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Yeah, Hell's Princess.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Hell's Princess. I don't know, she didn't really seem like
a princess.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
No, I'm gonna need Hell's Princess to be a little
bit better. Hell's bitch, No, Hell's grandma, No, Hell's asshole,
Hell's ogres.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Hell's Ogress of Indiana, black widow.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
Look at Princess Princess Ogress. That's gonna be my rap name.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Okay, get out mos smallt okay.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Oh that was about it, Like we went through all
of it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Holy shit, Batman, Holy.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
The Humble Starts, the ship filled boat ride, the Chicago Times,
The Indiana Times, brief pitstop in Minnesota.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
She's off to California to live out her days, and.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
That that's generally just the thought though, like that she
had to probably gone out west where people wouldn't recognize
her or have even really heard about her.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
It's just some other Norwegian community.

Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
It's possible. She Yeah, I really think that it's possible
she changed her name to another Norwegian name. I mean
she already changed it once.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Whoever the woman's body was that was left out the house,
she probably just stole her. I didn't do you. It's like, dude, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
That that isn't there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that horrendous story with us, Brett, Yeah,
we appreciate it. Home State of India.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Well you weren't born in Indiana?

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
Yeah, we already went over this.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Yeah, I was born in Laport, Indiana.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
I feel like I confused you with Bill Gunnis for
a second, mo biad.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Oh No, she wasn't born there. I was.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
You were born and raised there. When did you come
out west?

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
When I was twenty five?

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
Following in Bell Gunnis's footsteps? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
Wait, maybe, oh, maybe she came to fucking Nevada.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
What we all didn't think about is that Bell Gunnis
is actually Brett.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
Jesus Chris Brett.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
I sure hope not me too, dog. Maybe she did
come to Nevada.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
It's entirely possible. She either she either went up into
Oregon or she went west into California. In order to
get to California, she had to have come to Nevada.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
Yeah. Well, and I feel like Nevada is just the
kind of rough and tumble ass right, naughty.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
Town, rugged individualism. Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
That'd have been around the time that Reno was just
starting out.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
It would have been a little after she could have
gone Carson.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
That's Nevada's capital.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
I'm so proud of you, Sarah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
It was Queen of Capital's capital.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
Yeah, because it would have been like nineteen oh eight,
nineteen oh nine somewhere there. That's around the time she
would have been making her way west if she did that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Okay, so there's a chance, y'all, if you or your
family members or anybody you have heard of in your life,
looks like Bill Gunnis and you think it was her.
Tell us thanks for sharing that story. That was a
freaking wild one, and welcome back anytime. Great job on
the research that was freaking phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):
I would love to come back sometimes anytime. That was
fucking crazy, so we appreciate it. Rest in peace to
all of her victims, those poor men who just wanted
a partner and some sheedy land right upright future, if
you have any case corrections, any cases you want us
to cover, any recipes for Candice to maybe make one day.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
I almost made one and then we did not record
last Friday like we were going to, and today I
had three classes, So Sally.

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
I'm cutting all that out so nobody knows how sorry
you are and I think you're just.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
I'm a jerk.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
Or if you want us to, you know, check out
any coffee shops around town. Go ahead and hit us
up on Facebook.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
Scream and Sugar, Trigram Coffee.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
Hour on Instagram, Scream dot and Dot Sugar Dot podcast
on TikTok Scream dot and Dot sugar, or hit us
up on Gmail Scream and Sugar.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Email at gmail dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
Otherwise, we'll catch you all in the next one. And remember.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Spooky. Let's try that again.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
I remember to stay spooky.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
Bye bye bye audios.

Speaker 4 (01:05:00):
HM, you're about to learn something some crazy ship.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
Okay, have you all ever heard of the fly over States?

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
Fire? Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
Have y'all ever heard of corn?

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
I have?

Speaker 3 (01:05:51):
Well, man, are you in for a treat? We?

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
I am?

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
Is this called is your area called the Northwest?

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
It's the Midwest?

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
The Midwest, Ohio scream, oh shoegaze, corn Lakes, Lakes and
our boy Brett straight from the streets of Kansas.

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
What the fuck?

Speaker 3 (01:06:18):
Wisconsin?

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
From Indiana

All Episodes

Ep 52 - Belle Gunness, the Indiana Ogress FT. Heterophobia's Brett Masterson!

Episode Transcript

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep 52 - Belle Gunness, the Indiana Ogress FT. Heterophobia's Brett Masterson!