Not happy without someone to prey upon, Gunness put a personal ad in some big city papers. Gunness’ elder daughter was taken away by a kindly uncle who likely saved her life by getting her out of the house.
She gave birth to a son, Phillip, in May 1903, adding to her brood-Jennie, Lucy, and Myrtle remained in the house. Gunness later cashed in on $3000 (about $81,000 today) from Mr. As she was pregnant at the time, it’s possible that she used her condition to underline how innocent and harmless she was. Gunness that she hadn’t done anything wrong. The coroner was at first convinced that he had been murdered, but was later persuaded by Mrs. Don’t tell a soul,” which prompted an investigation into Mr. She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died. She was overheard saying, “”My mama killed my papa. Anyone suspicious yet? Jennie apparently was. Foster daughter Jennie arrived on the scene shortly after and saw Mrs. Gunness himself met a terrible fate when a meat chopper fell on his head, killing him. Gunness’ two daughters died shortly after the wedding from “unknown causes,” though it is known that she passed while she was in Belle’s sole care. Gunness is around, and the younger of Mr. Unfortunately, bad things tend to happen to children when Mrs. Gunness and her two remaining daughters from her previous marriage. The pair married on April 1, 1902, and the three Gunnesses moved in to the farm house with Mrs.
Gunness was a recent widower with two daughters. Shortly after the purchase, part of the property burned down and, you guessed it, she collected money for it from the insurance companies.Ī short while later, Gunness met the (second) love of her life: Peter Gunness. In 1901, Gunness used the money to purchase a farm in La Porte, Indiana. Gunness was paid $8000 dollars (about $217,000 today) in insurance money. The doctor attending him originally thought he was suffering from strychnine poisoning but was later convinced not to look into it the death wasn’t considered suspicious by most (though Sorenson’s family requested it be investigated, their demands were never met). There are a few different theories about how he died, but officially it was recorded that his heart gave out. Both Caroline and Axel had life insurance, and the insurance company lined Gunness’ pockets after her tragic loss.Īs for Gunness’ husband Sorenson, he died in 1900-conveniently on the one day that his two life insurance policies overlapped. It’s possible that a doctor, unwilling to believe that a mother would poison her own children, didn’t look into the two deaths as well as he should have. However, many of the symptoms of acute colitis, such as abdominal pain, are in line with the symptoms of poisoning. Over the next few years, two of their children, Caroline and Axel, died officially from acute colitis. That is, until the building caught fire and Gunness and her husband were able to collect insurance for the “accident.” It’s possible that Gunness actually started the fire, or that collecting insurance gave her the idea to collect more insurance from other sources. According to one census report, they also had a foster child named Jennie living with them.Ī year after starting the confectionery store, business wasn’t so hot. Together, the seemingly happy couple opened a confectionery store and had four children together-Caroline, Axel, Myrtle, and Lucy. His name was Mads Ditlev Anton Sorenson, and he didn’t know it yet, but he was going to be Gunness’ first known victim. Whatever the case, Gunness met the (first) man of her dreams in Chicago, where they married in 1893. Nevertheless, the incident could have been what spurred her to move to America… or it’s possible that she simply moved to be with her sister, who had emigrated some years before. Supposedly the man died shortly thereafter with symptoms akin to those of poisoning, but there’s little documentation to support this. There is a story that she was beaten by a man while pregnant at the age of seventeen, causing a miscarriage and a distinct personality change. Gunness was virtually unknown before she emigrated to the United States from Norway between 18.
It’s the kind of thing you hope will stick to the storybook pages, but for Belle Gunness’ victims, that was not the case. When he takes on a new wife, she discovers the murdered bodies of the old wives in a small, forbidden room. Bluebeard was a man who had been married several times, but no one knew what had happened to his previous wives. You probably remember Bluebeard, the title character in the French folk tale by Charles Perrault, which you might have stumbled across in a fairy tale book or two. Today I found out about the fascinating tale of Belle Gunness, “The Lady Bluebeard,” who is thought to have murdered her husbands, her children, and a couple dozen more people during her lifetime.