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www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com www.patreon.com/accidentaldads Belle Sorenson Gunness was initially born as Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth; November 11, 1859, Selbu, Norway – April 28, 1908?, Lwas a Norwegian-Americ Standing six feet tall (183 cm) and weighing over 200 pounds (91 kg), she was a massive, physically strong woman. Early years Gunness' origins are a matter of some debate. Most of her biographers state that she was born on November 11, 1859, near the lake of Selbu, Sør-Trøndelag, Norway, and christened Brynhild Paulsdatter Størset. Her parents were Paul Pedersen Størset (a stonemason) and Berit Olsdatter. She was the youngest of their eight children. They lived at Størsetgjerdet, a very small cotter's farm in Innbygda, 60 km southeast of Trondheim, the largest city in central Norway (Trøndelag). An Irish TV documentary by Anne Berit Vestby aired on September 4, 2006, tells a common, but the unverified story about Gunness' early life. The story holds that, in 1877, Gunness attended a country dance while pregnant. There she was attacked by a man who kicked her in the abdomen, causing her to miscarry the child. The man, who came from a wealthy family, was never prosecuted by the Norwegian authorities. According to people who knew her, her personality changed substantially. The man who attacked her died shortly afterward. His cause of death was said to be stomach cancer. Growing up in poverty, Gunness took to milking and herding cattle the following year on a large, wealthy farm and served there for three years to pay for a trip across the Atlantic. Following the example of a sister, Nellie Larson, who had emigrated to America earlier, Gunness moved to the United States in 1881 and assumed a more American-style name. Initially, In Chicago, while living with her sister and brother-in-law, she worked as a domestic servant, then got a job at a butcher's shop cutting up animal carcasses until her first marriage in 1884. First Victim In 1884, Gunness married Mads Ditlev Anton Sorenson in Chicago, Illinois, where, two years later, they opened a candy store. The business was unsuccessful, and the shop mysteriously burned down within a year. They collected the insurance, which paid for another home. Some researchers tend to believe that the marriage to Sorenson produced no offspring. However, Neighbors gossiped about the babies since Belle never appeared to be pregnant. Other investigators report that the couple had four children: Caroline, Axel, Myrtle, and Lucy. Caroline and Axel died in infancy, allegedly of acute colitis. The symptoms of acute colitis — nausea, fever, diarrhea, and lower abdominal pain and cramping — are also symptoms of many forms of poisoning. Caroline's and Axel's lives were reportedly insured, and the insurance company paid. A May 7, 1908 article in The New York Times states that two children belonging to Gunness and her husband Mads Sorensen were interred in her plot in Forest Home cemetery. On June 13, 1900, Gunness and her family were counted on the United States Census in Chicago. The census recorded her as the mother of four children; only two were living: Myrtle A., 3, and Lucy B., 1. An adopted 10-year-old girl, possibly identified as Morgan Couch but later known as Jennie Olsen, was also counted in the household. Sorenson died on July 30, 1900, reportedly the only day on which two life insurance policies on him overlapped. Both policies were active simultaneously, as one would expire that day, and the other would begin. The first doctor to see him thought he was suffering from strychnine poisoning. However, the Sorensons' family doctor had been treating him for an enlarged heart, and he concluded that heart failure caused death. An autopsy was considered unnecessary because the death was not thought suspicious. Sorenson died of cerebral hemorrhage that day. Gunness explained he had come home with a headache, and she provided him with quinine powder for the pain; she later checked on him, and he was dead. She applied for the insurance money the day after her husband's funeral. Sorenson's relatives claimed Gunness had poisoned her husband to collect on the insurance. Surviving records suggest that an inquest was ordered. It is unclear, however, whether that investigation actually occurred or Sorenson's body was ever exhumed to check for arsenic, as his relatives demanded. The insurance companies awarded her $8,500 (about $299,838.51 in today’s dollars), with which she bought a pig farm on the outskirts of La Porte, Indiana. Suspicion of murder In 1901, Gunness purchased a house on McClung Road. It’s been reported that both the boat and carriage houses burned to the ground shortly after she acquired the property. As she was preparing to move from Chicago to LaPorte, she became re-acquainted with a recent widower, Peter Gunness, also Norwegian-born. They were married in LaPorte on April 1, 1902; just one week after the ceremony, Peter's infant daughter died (of uncertain causes) while alone in the house with Belle. In December 1902, Peter himself met with a "tragic accident.” According to Belle, he reached for his slippers next to the kitchen stove when he was scalded with brine. She later declared that part of a sausage-grinding machine fell from a high shelf, causing a fatal head injury. A year later, Peter's brother, Gust, took Peter's older daughter, Swanhilde, to Wisconsin. She is the only child to have survived living with Belle. Her husband's death netted Gunness another $3,000 (some sources say $4,000). Local people refused to believe that her husband could be so clumsy; he had run a hog farm on the property and was known to be an experienced butcher; the district coroner reviewed the case and unequivocally announced that he had been murdered. He convened a coroner's jury to look into the matter. Meanwhile, Jennie Olsen, then 14, was overheard confessing to a classmate: "My mama killed my papa. She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died. Don't tell a soul." Jennie was brought before the coroner's jury but denied having said anything. Gunness, meanwhile, convinced the coroner that she was innocent of any wrongdoing. She did not mention that she was pregnant, which would have inspired sympathy, but in May 1903, a baby boy, Phillip, joined the family. In late 1906 Belle told neighbors that her foster daughter, Jennie Olsen, had gone away to a Lutheran College in Los Angeles (some neighbors were informed that it was a finishing school for young ladies). Jennie's body would later be recovered, buried on her adoptive mother's property. Between 1903 and 1906, Belle continued to run her farm. In 1907 Gunness employed a single farm hand, Ray Lamphere, to help with chores. The Suitors Around the same time, Gunness inserted the following advertisement in the matrimonial columns of all the Chicago daily newspapers and those of other large midwestern cities: “Personal — comely widow who owns a large farm in one of the finest districts in La Porte County, Indiana, desires to make the acquaintance of a gentleman equally well provided, with view of joining fortunes. No replies by letter considered unless sender is willing to follow answer with personal visit. Triflers need not apply.” Several middle-aged men of means responded to Gunness' ads. One of her ads was answered by a Wisconsin farmhand, Henry Gurholt. After traveling to La Porte, Gurholt wrote his family, saying that he liked the farm, was in good health, and requested that they send him seed potatoes. When they failed to hear from him, the family contacted Gunness. She told them Gurholt had gone off with horse traders to Chicago. She kept his trunk and fur overcoat. Another one was John Moe, who arrived from Elbow Lake, Minnesota. He had brought more than $1,000 with him to pay off her mortgage, or so he told neighbors, whom Gunness introduced him to as her cousin. He disappeared from her farm within a week of his arrival. Although no one ever saw Moe again, a carpenter who did occasional work for Gunness observed that Moe's trunk remained in her house, along with more than a dozen others. Next came George Anderson from Tarkio, Missouri, who, like Peter Gunness and John Moe, was an immigrant from Norway. During dinner with Anderson, she raised the issue of her mortgage. Anderson agreed that he would pay the debt off if they decided to get hitched. Late that night, Anderson awoke to see her standing over him, holding a burning, almost spent candle in her hand and with a strange, sinister expression on her face. Without uttering a word, she ran from the room. Anderson fled from the house, soon taking a train to Missouri. The suitors kept coming, but none of them, except for Anderson, ever left the Gunness farm. By this time, she had begun ordering massive trunks to be delivered to her home. Hack driver Clyde Sturgis delivered many of these trunks to her from La Porte. He later remarked how the heavyset woman would lift these enormous trunks "like boxes of marshmallows,” tossing them onto her broad shoulders and carrying them into the house. She kept the shutters of her house closed day and night; farmers traveling past the dwelling at night saw her digging in the hog pen. Ole B. Budsberg, an elderly widower from Iola, Wisconsin, showed up next. He was last seen alive at the La Porte Savings Bank on April 6, 1907, when he mortgaged his Wisconsin land, signing a deed and obtaining several thousand dollars in cash. Ole B. Budsberg's sons, Oscar and Mathew Budsberg, had no idea that their father had gone off to visit Gunness. When they finally discovered his destination, they wrote to her; she promptly responded, saying she had never seen their father. Several other middle-aged men appeared and disappeared in brief visits to the Gunness farm throughout 1907. Then, in December 1907, Andrew Helgelien, a bachelor farmer from Aberdeen, South Dakota, wrote to her and Belle was all about it. The pair exchanged many letters until a letter came that overwhelmed Helgelien, written in Gunness' careful handwriting and dated January 13, 1908. This letter was later found at the Helgelien farm. It read: “To the Dearest Friend in the World: No woman in the world is happier than I am. I know that you are now to come to me and be my own. I can tell from your letters that you are the man I want. It does not take one long to tell 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 whole world. We will be all alone with each other. Can you conceive of anything nicer? I think of you constantly. When I hear your name mentioned, and this is when one of the dear children speaks of you, or I hear myself humming it with the words of an old love song, it is beautiful music to my ears. My heart beats in wild rapture for you, My Andrew, I love you. Come prepared to stay forever.” Yikes…. In response to her letter, Helgelien flew to her side in January 1908. He arrived with a check for $2,900, the entire savings he had drawn from his local bank. A few days after Helgelien arrived, he and Gunness appeared at the Savings Bank in La Porte and deposited the check. Helgelien vanished a few days later, but Gunness appeared at the Savings Bank to make a $500 deposit and another deposit of $700 in the State Bank. At this time, she started to have problems with her farmhand, Ray Lamphere. In March 1908, Gunness sent several letters to a farmer and horse dealer in Topeka, Kansas named Lon Townsend, inviting him to visit her; he decided to put off the visit until spring and thus did not see her before a fire at her farm. Gunness was also in correspondence with a man from Arkansas and sent him a letter dated May 4, 1908. He would have visited her, but didn’t because of the fire at her farm. Gunness allegedly promised marriage to a suitor Bert Albert, which did not go through because of his lack of wealth. Turning Point The hired hand Ray Lamphere was deeply in love with Gunness; he performed any chore for her, no matter how gruesome. He became jealous of the many men who arrived to court his employer and began making scenes. She fired him on February 3, 1908. Shortly after dispensing with Lamphere, she presented herself at the La Porte courthouse. She declared that her former employee was not in his right mind and was a menace to the public. She somehow convinced local authorities to hold a sanity hearing. Lamphere was pronounced sane and released. Gunness was back a few days later to complain to the sheriff that Lamphere had visited her farm and argued with her. She contended that he threatened her family and had Lamphere arrested for trespassing. Lamphere returned again and again to see her, but she told him to kick rocks each time. Lamphere made thinly disguised threats. Like on one occasion, he confided to farmer William Slater, "Helgelien won't bother me no more. We fixed him for keeps." Helgelien had long since disappeared from the area, or so it was believed. However, his brother, Asle Helgelien, was disturbed when Andrew failed to return home and he wrote to Belle in Indiana, asking her about his sibling's whereabouts. Gunness wrote back, telling Asle Helgelien that his brother was not at her farm and probably went to Norway to visit relatives. Asle Helgelien said he did not believe his brother would do that. He believed his brother was still in the La Porte area, the last place he was seen or heard from. Gunness, being the ballsy bitch she was, told him that if he wanted to come and look for his brother, she would help conduct a search, but she cautioned him that searching for missing persons was an expensive proposition. If she were to be involved in such a manhunt, she stated, Asle Helgelien should be prepared to pay her for her efforts. Asle Helgelien did come to La Porte, but not until May. Ray Lamphere represented an unresolved danger to Belle, and now Asle Helgelien was making inquiries that could very well send her to the gallows. She told a lawyer in La Porte, M.E. Leliter, that she feared for her life and her children’s. Ray Lamphere, she said, had threatened to kill her and burn her house down. She wanted to make out a will just in case Lamphere followed through with his threats. Leliter, the attorney, complied and drew up her will. She left her entire estate to her children and left Leliter's office. She went to one of the La Porte banks holding the mortgage for her property and, not suspiciously at all, paid it off. However, she did not go to the police to tell them about Lamphere's allegedly life-threatening conduct. The reason for this, most historical, true crime nerds agree, was that there hadn’t been any threats; she was merely setting the stage for her own arson. Joe Maxson, who had been hired to replace Ray Lamphere in February 1908, awoke in the early hours of April 28, 1908, smelling smoke in his room on the second floor of the Gunness house. He opened the hall door to a shit load of flames. Maxson screamed Gunness' name and those of her children but got no response. He slammed the door and then, in his tighty whiteys, leaped from the second-story window of his room, barely surviving the fire that was closing in around him. He raced to town to get help, but by the time the old-fashioned hook and ladder firetruck arrived at the farm at early dawn, the farmhouse was a big ol’ pile of smoking ruins. Four bodies were found inside the house. One of the bodies was that of a woman who could not immediately be identified as Gunness, since she had been decapitated. The head was never found. The bodies of her children were found still in their beds. County Sheriff Smutzer had somehow heard about Lamphere’s alleged threats, so he took one look at the carnage and quick…
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