In the early 1900s, a widow named Belle Gunness placed ads in newspapers. These ads were for lonely men who wanted to find love and marriage. She owned a big farm in Indiana, and the ads seemed like a great chance for these men.
One of her ads said she was a “comely widow” who wanted to meet a gentleman to share her fortune. She published these ads in newspapers that were read by people who spoke Scandinavian languages.
Before the internet, Belle Gunness used men’s loneliness to her advantage. She invited them to her farm, promising them love. But instead, she killed them and buried them in the ground.
Belle Gunness was a large woman, almost 6 feet tall and very heavy. She had grown up on a farm in Norway and was used to hard work. Even though she wasn’t considered attractive, she was able to attract many men.
Belle was born in Norway in 1859 and later moved to Indiana. She became known as a hardworking farm owner. But bad luck seemed to follow her.
She had three children and worked hard on her farm.
Belle’s first husband died suddenly in 1900. He had two life insurance policies that overlapped on the day he died. People thought he might have been poisoned, but there was no autopsy.
Two years later, she married Peter Gunness. He died from a head injury. Belle said a meat grinder had fallen on him, but the death seemed suspicious. Around the same time, a baby from Peter’s first marriage died while Belle was taking care of it.
Both deaths were called accidents, and Belle received money from the insurance policies.
Belle then started placing personal ads in newspapers, looking for rich, unmarried men.
She was very careful in her letters to these men and made sure they followed her rules.
She would tell them to sell everything and bring only cash. It’s thought that she took about $3,000 from each man, which is like $100,000 today.
Men from places like Chicago and Minneapolis would pack their bags and travel to Indiana, hoping for a new life.
But they were never seen again.
It’s believed that Belle would poison the men and then kill them with an ax or other weapon. She would then cut up their bodies and bury them.
In 1908, a fire destroyed Belle’s farmhouse, killing her children. Before the fire, she had made a will and bought kerosene. The bodies of her children and a woman were found in the burned house.
At first, people thought the woman was Belle, but they soon realized the body was too small. Many people didn’t believe that Belle had really died.
After the fire, relatives of the missing men came to the farm, looking for answers. One of them was Asle Helgelien, whose brother Andrew had disappeared after visiting Belle. Asle’s questions led the police to start digging on the property.
The police found bodies wrapped in burlap, cut into pieces, and buried in shallow graves.
It was a shocking crime to find a graveyard on Belle Gunness’s farm with the bodies of many victims.
It’s estimated that Belle killed at least 14 people, and maybe as many as 40.
Some people think the police didn’t even try to count all the bodies.
Bones from the farm were put on display, and tours were given as part of a show.
People claimed to have seen Belle in different places, leading to rumors that she had faked her death and disappeared.
She became a mysterious figure, and some believed she lived under a new name for many years.
In 2008, a team of experts tried to compare DNA from the body found in the fire to letters Belle had written.
But the results were unclear because the samples were too old.
Belle Gunness was never found, and no one knows how many people she killed. Her story remains a mystery in America.
