Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

by Harold Schechter

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Belle said with a laugh. “I heard that you had gotten married and wrote to tell Jennie.”

  Weidner explained that it was his brother who had gotten married and “asked her to write and tell Jennie that I was still single.” Mrs. Gunness promised that she would.

  But Jennie never wrote to him.[11]

  6.

  RAY

  With Jennie gone, life on the Gunness farm lost whatever charm it possessed for Emil Greening. In June 1907, six months after her abrupt departure, he quit his job and headed west. One month later, he was replaced by Ray Lamphere.[1]

  Newspaper photographs of Lamphere show a thin-faced, long-nosed man with a thatch of dark curly hair, a bushy unkempt mustache, and eyes with the look of a wild, cornered animal. Thirty-seven years old at the time he became involved with Belle Gunness, he was the son of a once-prominent member of the community, William W. Lamphere, a former schoolteacher, politician, and justice of the peace who “had drunk away his money, his respectable social position, and his happy home.”[2]

  Like his father, Ray was overly fond of the bottle. Though a skilled carpenter when sober, he was generally regarded as a “weak, worthless, no account man” whose wages—when he earned any—were squandered on liquor, whores, and gambling, and who was reputed to have lost fifty dollars in a single night on a backroom saloon slot machine.[3]

  Accounts of how he came to be hired by Belle differ. Several chroniclers claim that—having had her eyes on him for a while—she stopped him on the street one day in June and proposed that he come live at the farm and work for her. Others, more convincingly, say that, as a member of the local Carpenters’ Union, Ray heard about some “work that needed to be done at the Gunness farm from a fellow carpenter and met up with Belle for an interview in La Porte. She hired him on the spot.”[4]

  Whatever the case, it is certain that, by early July, Lamphere was living at the Gunness place, occupying the room on the second floor of the farmhouse recently vacated by Emil Greening. He had also—as he regularly boasted to his drinking companions—become her lover. The notion of the slightly built young man throwing himself into a sexual affair with the coarse-featured, 280-pound female nearly eleven years his senior has led at least one student of the case to indulge in some armchair psychoanalysis, speculating that it was Belle’s “very maturity” that made her irresistible to Lamphere. “To a lonely man with an urge to be mothered, to return to the security of the womb, such a woman may have represented the safety of fulfillment without any of its responsibilities.”[5]

  Perhaps. It is also true, however, that other employees of Belle’s had become her bedmates. One of them, Peter Colson, who worked on her farm for two years, would later describe in titillating detail how she would come to his room at night and make “love to him with sweet words and caresses.” She “purred like a cat,” Colson testified. “She was soft and gentle in her ways. I never saw such a woman.”[6]

  Throughout the fall of 1907, Ray and Mrs. Gunness were often seen together. Looking much like Jack Sprat and his wife, they rode into town in her wagon and strolled side by side along the streets. To his cronies, he would crow that she had begged him to marry her, and he flaunted the gifts she had lavished on him, including a handsome silver watch. From a town laughingstock—a “shiftless loafer and bum,” as one newspaper described him—he was to become master of a fine, sprawling farm.[7]

  And then Andrew Helgelien showed up.

  7.

  HELGELIEN

  Beginning in the summer of 1906, even while other respondents to her ad were arriving regularly at her farm, Belle embarked on a correspondence with Andrew Helgelien,[1] a forty-nine-year-old wheat farmer from South Dakota, who had seen her advertisement in the Minneapolis Titende. Over the course of the next eighteen months, she would send dozens of letters to him—between seventy-five and eighty, according to the most reliable sources.[2]

  All were written in Norwegian and were so sloppy in their diction, spelling, and penmanship that the translator who later provided English versions for the court described them “as extremely faulty and evidently the work of an ignorant person.”[3] Crudely composed as they were, however, these “siren missives” (as one contemporary newspaper called them) worked their sinister spell, luring their recipient, like the parade of eager suitors who preceded him, to the place soon to be known throughout the nation as the “murder farm.”[4]

  That Belle spent a year and a half setting her snare says a good deal not only about her malevolent cunning but about Helgelien himself. Unlike most of her earlier victims, he was no easy prey. Among the few surviving photographs of him are a full-face view and accompanying profile: his prison mug shot. A burly, thick-necked Norwegian of somewhat porcine appearance, he had spent ten years in the Minnesota Correctional Facility for robbing the village post office in Red Wing, Minnesota, then burning down the building in an attempt to destroy any evidence. At the time he responded to Belle’s ad in 1906—twelve years after his release—he was farming in Abderdeen, South Dakota, not far from his brother, Asle, a homesteader in nearby Mansfield and a sister, Anna, in Lebanon.[5]

  Addressing him as “Dear Sir” and signing herself as “Mrs. P. S. Gunness,” Belle wrote back to Helgelien on August 8, 1906, describing herself as the owner of “a beautiful home right in the midst of where the rich people have their fine summer homes . . . All kinds of fruit trees abound here and good new houses with all improvements and fine boulevard roads.” She claimed to “have 74 acres of land”—50 percent more than the actual size of her spread—with an estimated value of “$12,000 to $14,000” (roughly equivalent to $400,000 today). To see if he was a worthy candidate for her attentions, she closed by asking him “to tell me a little further respecting yourself” and, most crucially, “how much cash you intend to invest.”[6]

  Though Helgelien’s half of their correspondence no longer exists, it is clear from Belle’s next letter to him, dated August 20, that he wrote back at once and that his response more than satisfied her of his assets. Her tone conveys the barely suppressed excitement of an angler who has felt an enormous catch take the hook and must summon every bit of skill to reel it in.

  “Dear Friend,” the letter began. “You impress me with being a good man with a strong and honest character. A real genuine Norwegian in every respect, and it is difficult to find such a man and not every woman appreciates. There are plenty of these American ‘dudes’ around here but I would not even look at them, no matter how often they asked me.” She presented an idyllic picture of her adopted state, describing Indiana’s climate as “mild in the winter and not so very warm [as South Dakota] in the summer, with plenty rain and no storms and the land is all good so we can raise everything.”

  La Porte, in her telling, was a place of golden opportunity. “There is a good market for everything because it is so near Chicago, and the land is going up all the time,” she wrote. “There are very many who are almost millionaires now by having bought pieces of land a few years ago and have doubled the price many times and sold out the land in small lots to business people in Chicago for summer homes . . . You will have a much better chance to make use of your capital here, and it will probably make you independent for the rest of your life.” Declaring that she had chosen him to be her partner “out over a hundred applicants,” she urged him not to delay. “Take all your money out of the bank,” she advised, “and come as soon as possible.”

  By September—just a month after they first made contact—Bella (as she would spell her name in all succeeding letters) was already treating Helgelien not as a mere business partner but as a potential mate. “I long so to know you better but I will try to wait with patience until you get [here],” she wrote in the fervent tone of a lovesick woman yearning to be reunited with her absent sweetheart. “I have now thrown away all the other answers I got a
nd keep all of yours in a secret place by themselves . . . You truly do not know how highly I prize them as I have not found anything so genuine[ly] Norwegian and real in all the 20 years I have been in America.”

  In her enamored eyes, Helgelien towered above the common run of men, and she could hardly wait to devote herself entirely to his needs. “I do not think a queen could be good enough for you,” she gushed, “and in my thoughts you stand highest above all high and I will not let anything stand in the way of my doing anything for you.”

  She sketched an enticing portrait of the blissful domestic life they would share. “We shall be so happy when you once get here,” she vowed, “then I will make a cream pudding and many other good things . . . How lonesome it must seem for you to be up there all alone, but you must hurry and come to me as soon as you can . . . You have been there long enough and worked hard for many a day and now you must take it easier for the rest of your days.”

  There was one thing, she stressed, that would make their new life together even sweeter. Helgelien must tell no one of his plans to join Belle in La Porte, especially his family members. “When we get all settled we will have your dear sister Anna in Lebanon visit us,” she promised. “But my dear, do not say anything about coming here, then the surprise will be so much greater when she finds it out . . . It is so much pleasure to keep this secret to ourselves and to see how surprised everyone will be when they find it out.”

  Before signing off, she made sure to emphasize the practical advice she would repeat many times in the following months. “Now sell all that you can get cash for, and if you have much left you can easily take it with you, as we will soon sell it here and get a good price on everything. Leave neither money or stock up there but make yourself free from Dakota so you will have nothing more to bother with up there.

  “Now my dearest friend,” she closed, “come soon.”

  In a letter Belle received on October 27, 1906, Helgelien mentioned that he had been ill. “You do not know how badly it makes me feel that you have been sick and all alone,” she replied that same day. “Make yourself some good hot punch and put on some good warm underclothes and keep good and warm all the time. Health is the best thing we can have my dear friend.”

  Expecting his imminent arrival, she promised to meet him at the train depot. He would have no trouble recognizing her: “I am a rather stout woman,” she said with considerable understatement, “a genuine Norwegian with brown Norwegian hair and blue eyes.” Helgelien could expect the warmest of welcomes. “You must remember that you will get a meeting that comes from the heart. Even if the world has been a little hard with me, I have just the same kept my good nature.”

  It was important, she repeated, that no one else be privy to his travel plans, delivering her advice with a flirtatious wink. “Come alone,” she said. “Do not take anyone from up there with you before we become a little acquainted . . . Do you not think that would be best if we were alone, especially at the beginning?”

  She ended with the kind of farewell that lovers exchange during long separations. “Now I must close because I am getting sleepy. I will now go to bed and think about you.”

  With winter approaching and no indication that he had made his travel arrangements, Belle’s tone became more urgent. She pleaded with her “dearest best friend” to settle his affairs as quickly as possible and hurry to her side. “Why must you stay so long up there where it is so bad? I am now so afraid that you will become ill if you stay any longer. If only you were here, we could have it so much better, both you and I . . . You do not need to stay up there and work yourself to death, dear friend, but, as you say, live in peace and get a little good out of life.”

  Conveying a wifely concern with his well-being, she admonished him to bundle up for the journey: “Procure some good woolen underclothing and a good big bearskin coat so you will not take cold on the trip.” His health, however, was not her sole concern. “You talk of leaving some of your money up there. This I would not do if I was you,” she counseled. “Take all your money and bring it with you when you come, as you can get high interest for your money here . . . My dear friend, have all the money changed into bills, into as large a denomination as possible, and sew them real good, first on the inside of your underwear and put a thin piece of cloth under so it would not be noticed and sew it good.”

  Once again, she reminded him of the importance of maintaining absolute secrecy. “Do not say one word about it to anyone, not even your nearest relative.” Here, as before, Belle’s words take on a distinctly suggestive quality, “implying between the lines what could happen between the sheets,” as one historian puts it.[7] “So dear friend,” she wrote, “this is a secret between us and no one else. Probably we will have many other secrets between us, not so, dear friend? . . . We will have many things between us which no one else will know which we will enjoy, won’t we, my dearest friend? I will surely see to it that you will enjoy yourself.”

  She ended with a word of caution that, in light of what she truly had planned for Helgelien, reveals much about the depravity of her character, the sadistic pleasure she clearly derived from toying, catlike, with an intended victim. Reminding him again of the need to protect his money during the journey, she urged him to be on his guard. “I know now that you are a man with knowledge of many things and have seen how smooth and evil so many people are and how much fraud and tricks they are up to, and would take all one had and do not want to work but live on others and do not care what evil they do . . . My friend, just keep away from such people.”

  In early December 1906, Belle received word from Helgelien that he would be unable to make the move to La Porte as soon as they had hoped. “My dearest best friend,” she wrote back on the fourteenth. “You do not know how downhearted I became when I read that you could not come for Christmas and that you have decided to remain up there all winter. Who will eat all this Norwegian codfish, cream pudding, etc. and enjoy all the pleasures I have planned?”

  Disappointed as she was, however, she assured him that she would continue to wait patiently for him. “I place you higher in my affections than any one on this earth,” she declared, “and will remain true until you come.” With her usual calculation, she ended with a picture of shared domestic contentment that must have been irresistibly tantalizing to a lonely bachelor fending for himself on a harsh Dakota farmstead. “If only you were here with me and were sitting in a rocking chair talking to me. Then I would go and get you a glass of fruit wine which I made myself, but you will get it when you do come, my dear friend.”

  Shortly after the new year, Helgelien received word from Norway that his mother had died. On January 12, 1907, Belle sent a consoling letter, urging him to take comfort from the knowledge that his mother had gone to her reward—that “the Lord has called her home.

  “It is hard when the bond breaks between which keep together the parents and children,” Belle conceded. “But we must all bow down to our God’s wise guidance and we know that sometime we shall meet again. We must try and make the best of our lives as long as we live in this wicked world and we will not grieve over the dead, they have received their rest and we must hope they are with God in heaven, joyous and happy.”

  The best remedy for bereavement, she asserted, was to put aside thoughts of the departed and “live for the ones who are here with us and do the best we can for them.” In Helgelien’s case, that meant hastening to the side of the person so eagerly awaiting his arrival. “Now, my dear friend,” she closed, “I hope you will do all you can to get here as soon as possible.”

  With the coming of spring, Belle—who clearly saw no excuse for any further delay—intensified her pressure on Helgelien. Addressing him not merely as her “dearest best friend” but as her “very best and faithfullest friend in the whole wide world,” she filled her letters with relentlessly
rosy pictures of their future life together.

  “I wait so for you,” she wrote to him in April. “When you come, then we will have many calves, little pigs, chickens and kittens. This will be fine and lots of fun, won’t it? All these animals I have, I make such pets of them and they all like me so well.”

  Several weeks later, she reported excitedly that she was “fixing up inside the house” in preparation for his arrival. “It will be real comfortable and pleasant when it is all ready and then I hope you will be here and everything is all right,” she exclaimed. “Then we will be so cozy and have some good homemade cake and some good coffee and cream pudding and many other good things. Then we will also sit and talk and talk until we get so tired we cannot talk any more. Yes, my dear friend, we will make up for this long waiting, that you can be sure of . . . Oh, if only you knew how I would love to talk with you about everything, my good friend . . . Yes, my dear friend, it will be so pleasant.”

  Though Helgelien had evidently given Belle good reason to believe that he would finally join her in the summer of 1907, he postponed his departure again. That fall, for the first time, she gave vent to her frustration.

  “Now it is already the 25th of September and last year at this time I waited for you and yet you haven’t come to me,” she chided. “I know you are a man I can trust and therefore I have waited so faithful but it is so tiresome and lonely to wait so much longer and the fall is here again and I have the whole year managed the best I could without steady help because I have waited for you from one time to another as you have promised and promised and it seems as if you will never get your belongings in order up there.”