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Belle Gunness, originally known as Brynhild Paulsdatter Storseth, was far from the typical Norwegian immigrant who ventured to America. While many sought prosperity through hard work, Gunness had a more sinister plan to amass wealth—one marked by deceit and violence.
Gunness is suspected to have killed between 17 and 180 individuals during her reign of terror from 1884 to 1908. Her killing spree ended with her mysterious disappearance, which continues to spark rumors and speculation to this day. The enigma of Belle Gunness lives on, leaving behind a dangerous legacy.
10. The First Husband
Soon after her arrival in the United States, Gunness wed Mads Albert Sorenson in 1884, seeking to secure his wealth. Shortly thereafter, a fire destroyed both their home and their store. The couple subsequently collected insurance money for the devastating incident, a move that raised many eyebrows.
However, it seems that even this wasn't enough for Gunness, as her husband passed away soon after from heart failure in 1900. Interestingly, he died on the same day that both of his life insurance policies overlapped. Gunness walked away from this event with a substantial sum. It was clear that she had big plans in mind.
9. The Second Husband
Using the insurance money from her first husband's death, Gunness purchased a dilapidated farm in Indiana. She poured much of the funds into restoring the property. However, it seems she was in need of more income, which led her to meet her second husband, Peter Gunness, by 1902.
The couple, along with Peter's daughter from a previous marriage, settled on the farm. But their marriage was short-lived, as Peter passed away only nine months later. The mysterious circumstances surrounding his death left many people suspicious.
According to Mrs. Gunness, Peter experienced a tragic accident when he bumped into the hot stove while reaching for a shoe, spilling a pot of boiling water onto himself. If that weren't bad enough, a meat grinder overhead fell from a shelf and struck him between the eyes.
Peter's death was officially recorded as a tragic accident, and Mrs. Gunness was able to claim the insurance payout she had taken out on his life.
8. Her Children
It's difficult to imagine that Belle Gunness possessed any nurturing instincts, given that she had already killed two husbands. However, she did have children. Gunness had three kids in total from both marriages. Her two oldest were Myrtle and Lucy, both daughters from her first marriage. Her youngest child, Philip, was born after the death of his father, Peter Gunness.
What, if anything, the children knew about their mother's gruesome activities is a mystery since none of them survived to adulthood. One can only speculate that they must have sensed something was off, particularly when their mother began introducing new men into the household.
7. Hired Help And Norwegian Men
Running a farm and raising children wasn't enough for Belle Gunness. She yearned for more, which meant securing a steady income and reliable help around the property.
Initially, she began hiring men to assist on the farm. Some would come and go, while others mysteriously vanished. It is believed she often became involved with these men, and once they felt they had control over the household, she would dispose of them in whatever way suited her.
Eventually, Gunness shifted her approach. She stopped hiring farmhands and began placing ads in Norwegian-language newspapers circulating in the American Midwest. The ad was straightforward: she was seeking a man with money to move in and join her on the farm. She ended her ad with, "No replies by letter considered unless sender is willing to follow answer with personal visit."
A number of men answered her ads, eager to move to an established farm and live a comfortable life. She instructed these hopefuls to sell off their belongings and bring the money with them when they arrived.
Naturally, these men were never seen again.
6. The Fire And The Bodies
Given the number of men who had gone missing, it was only a matter of time before Gunness's actions would come to light. Perhaps she anticipated this, as her farm was destroyed in a fire early on the morning of April 28, 1908.
Upon investigation, authorities found that the first floor had collapsed, sending the piano crashing into the basement. Beneath the wreckage of the piano lay four bodies. Three of the corpses were likely those of Belle Gunness’s children, while the fourth was a headless woman, initially presumed to be Gunness herself.
Though one might think this grim discovery marked the end of the story, it was, in fact, only the beginning. Just a day before the fire, Gunness had visited a lawyer to draft her will, openly expressing fear that a former employee might kill her. She had also been seen buying kerosene shortly thereafter.
A trunk was also delivered to the farm on the eve of the fire, sparking rumors that it contained the body of the headless woman who had taken Gunness’s place in the burning house.
Whatever the true circumstances were, it was clear that most people believed Belle Gunness was too intelligent to be caught, either alive or dead.
5. Dissected Remains
Where had the woman’s head gone? A group of men scoured the farm, hoping to uncover proof that the headless woman was indeed Belle Gunness. What they stumbled upon, however, was far more horrifying than they could have imagined.
In the muck of the hog pen, investigators discovered the dismembered remains of men. Gunness had taken extensive measures to prevent identification, not only by cutting them into pieces but by soaking gunnysacks in lye and wrapping them around the body parts. All that remained were skeletal fragments.
Reports also suggested that Gunness had mixed the body parts of various men into a single grave, then covered them with quicklime and a thick layer of cement, ensuring they could never be identified.
In contrast, the women she murdered were given a more respectful burial in her garden patch.
4. Did She Escape?
Ray Lamphere, the man who admitted to being Gunness’s accomplice, was the very person she had claimed was plotting her murder. Arrested soon after the fire, Lamphere confessed that he had assisted Gunness in staging her death and had even escorted her to the railway station. While his story remains uncertain, he was tried and convicted of arson.
In the meantime, some newspapers circulated rumors that Gunness had successfully fled the United States and made her way to either Australia or New Zealand.
Though there is no concrete evidence proving that Gunness escaped the fire, there is equally no definitive proof that the headless woman found in the ruins was indeed her. At this point, Belle Gunness had vanished without a trace.
3. DNA Testing
By 2008, the enigma surrounding Belle Gunness’s disappearance was still very much unsolved. Had the infamous murderer perished in the fire, or did she manage to flee? A team of forensic anthropologists was determined to uncover the truth once and for all.
They exhumed the graves of the four bodies recovered from the fire's aftermath and conducted DNA testing, but the findings were inconclusive.
We may never uncover the true fate of Belle Gunness. However, she remains a figure of legend, continuing to be immortalized in folklore, fictional works, songs, and even as the name of a beer—Belle Gunness Stout.
2. Continued Sightings
What kept the story of Belle Gunness alive for years were the numerous reports of sightings long after the fire. For instance, the summer following the blaze, three of her former neighbors claimed to have seen Gunness walking down a road accompanied by another man.
In 1923, yet another neighbor reported seeing Gunness strolling through an orchard. Upon closer inspection, he discovered fresh footprints belonging to both a man and a woman.
Then in 1931, a woman named Esther Carlson poisoned an elderly man in order to access his bank account. The LA deputy district attorney suggested that Carlson was actually Gunness in disguise, though the claim was never substantiated.
1. Accused Of Being A Man
As bodies began to surface on the farm, speculation ran wild. One of the most widespread rumors about Belle Gunness was that she was actually a man. At the time, people found it hard to believe that a woman could commit such a string of murders, let alone have the physical strength to kill so many men.
Female gossipers painted Gunness as a woman who dressed in men’s clothing, giving her a masculine look. She was often seen wearing men’s rings and was said to have muscular arms like a man’s, leading some to believe she was only pretending to be female in order to deceive men into her deadly trap.
In reality, she was a 127-kilogram (280 lb) woman who could hold her own against most men, should the situation call for it.
