• In 1999 a man wearing a long dark coat and a mask walked into the Royal Casino in Aberdeen, South Dakota, pointed a gun at the clerk, and demanded money. The next day, local man Jerold Nissen, 44, was arrested for the crime. Nissen was a regular at the casino, and the clerk had recognized the distinctively powerful odor of his cologne. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.
In 2005 a Dutch court let a bank robber deduct his gun as a “legitimate business expense.”
BELLE GUNNESS:
THE TERROR
OF LA PORTE
A dark tale from our “Dustbin of Gruesome History” files.
THE DISCOVERY
On the night of April 28, 1908, Joe Maxson, a hired hand on a farm outside of La Porte, Indiana, awoke in his upstairs bedroom to the smell of smoke. The house was on fire. He called out to the farm’s owner, Belle Gunness, and her three children. Getting no answer, he jumped from a second-story window, narrowly escaping the flames, and ran for help. But it was too late; the house was destroyed. A search through the wreckage resulted in a grisly discovery: four dead bodies in the basement. Three were Gunness’s children, aged 5, 9, and 11. The fourth was a woman, assumed to be Gunness herself, but identification was difficult—the body’s head was missing. An investigation ensued, and Ray Lamphere, a recently fired employee, was arrested for arson and murder. Before Lamphere’s trial was over, he would be little more than a side-bar in what is still one of the most most horrible crime stories in American history...and an unsolved mystery.
BACKGROUND
Belle Gunness was born Brynhild Paulsdatter Storseth in Selbu, Norway, in 1859. At the age of 22 she emigrated to America and moved in with her older sister in Chicago, where she changed her name to “Belle.” In 1884 the 25-year-old married another Norwegian immigrant, Mads Sorenson, and the couple opened a candy shop. A year later the store burned down, the first of what would be several suspicious fires in Belle’s life. The couple collected an insurance payout and used the money to buy a house in the Chicago suburbs. Fifteen years later, in 1898, that house burned down, and another insurance payment allowed the couple to buy another house. On July 30, 1900, yet another insurance policy was brought into play, but this time it was life insurance: Mads Sorenson had died. A doctor’s autopsy said he was murdered, probably by strychnine poisoning, so an inquest was ordered. The coroner’s investigation eventually deemed the death to be “of natural causes,” and Belle collected $8,000, becoming, for 1900, a wealthy woman. (The average yearly income in 1900 was less than $500.) She used part of the money to buy the farm in La Porte. But there was a lot more death—and insurance money—to come.
P. T. Barnum was jailed for libel when he was a newspaper editor.
MORE SUSPICIONS
In April 1902, Belle married a local butcher named Peter Gunness and became Belle Gunness. One week later, Peter Gunness’s infant daughter died while left alone with Belle...and yet another insurance policy was collected on. Just eight months after that, Peter Gunness was dead: He was found in his shed with his skull crushed. Belle, who was 5'8", weighed well over 200 pounds, and was known to be very strong, told the police that a meat grinder had fallen from a high shelf and landed on her husband’s head. The coroner said otherwise, ruling the cause of death to be murder. On top of that, a witness claimed to have overheard Belle’s 14-year-old daughter, Jennie, saying to a classmate, “My mama killed my papa. She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died.”
Belle and Jennie were brought before a coroner’s jury and questioned. Jennie denied making the statement; Belle denied killing her husband. The jury found Belle innocent—and she collected another $3,000 in life insurance money. And she was just getting started.
NOT WELL SUITED
Not long after Peter Gunness’s death, Belle started putting ads in newspapers around the Midwest. One read:
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.
The ads worked, and suitors began to show up at the farm with visions of “joining fortunes” in mind. John Moo arrived from Minnesota in late 1902 with his life savings of $1,000 in hand. He stayed at the farm for about a week...and disappeared. Over the years several more met the same fate: Henry Gurholdt from Wisconsin, who had brought $1,500; Ole B. Budsburg, also from Wisconsin, who brought the deed to his property, worth thousands, and was last seen in a La Porte bank in April 1907; and Andrew Hegelein, from South Dakota, also last seen in the bank, in January 1908.
Street sign stolen more than 350 times in Eugene, Oregon: High Street.
Andrew Hegelein turned out to be the last of the disappearing suitors, because a few weeks after his disappearance, his brother, A.K. Hegelein, wrote to Gunness to inquire about him. She replied that he’d gone to Norway. Hegelein didn’t believe her—and threatened to come to La Porte to find out what had happened to him.
LAMPHERE
We said at the start of the story that when the Gunness home burnt to the ground, killing the three children and, presumably, Belle Gunness, former employee Ray Lamphere was arrested. The reason: Lamphere had been hired in 1907 and, by all accounts, had fallen in love with Gunness. The seemingly constant coming and going of suitors enraged him, and he and Gunness fought about it. In February 1908, around the time of Hegelein’s disappearance, Gunness fired Lamphere. Not only that—she went to the local sheriff and told him that Lamphere was making threats against her. The day before the house fire, she went to a lawyer and made out a will, telling the lawyer that Lamphere had threatened to kill her and her children...and to burn her house down. Under the circumstances, the sheriff had to arrest Lamphere—but the focus of the investigation would soon turn elsewhere.
THE WOMAN IN THE BASEMENT
Lamphere denied any involvement with either the arson or the murders. Few people believed him...but there were serious questions about the body of Belle Gunness. Doctors who inspected the remains said they belonged to a woman about 5'3" (they had to account for the missing head, of course) who weighed about 150 pounds. Gunness was much larger than that. And several neighbors who knew Gunness well viewed the remains—and said it wasn’t her. Then A. K. Hegelein showed up looking for his brother. He told the police his story and insisted that a search be made of Gunness’s property. The search began on May 3. Two days later, five bodies, carefully dismembered and wrapped in oilcloth, were discovered buried around the farm.
Someone insult you? It’s legal to duel in Paraguay...as long as you’re a registered blood donor.
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!
The first body was determined to be that of Gunness’s daughter Jennie, who, according to Belle, had been in school in California since 1906. The second body was Andrew Hegelein. The third was an unidentified man; the fourth and fifth were unidentified eight-year-old girls.
Neighbors told investigators that they had often seen Gunness digging in her hog pen, so they dug up that area—and found body after body after body. Included in the group: suitors John Moo, Ole Budsburg, and Henry Gurhold. In the end the remains of more than 25 bodies (some reports say as many as 49) were found, many of them unidentifiable.
Belle Gunness had obviously lured the men to her farm and killed them for their money. People in La Porte began to believe that if she could do that, she could fake her own death, and that the body found after the fire was yet another of her victims. It was beginning to look like A. K. Hegelein’s threat to come look for his brother made Gunness panic and come up with her bloody plan. But then a problem arose: On May 16 a part of a jawbone and a section of dentures were found in the ruins of the house. Gunness’s dentist, Ira Norton, inspected them—and said the dental work on the teeth belonged to Belle Gunness.
THE AFTERMATH
After a long investigation the body of the woma
n in the fire was officially declared to be that of Belle Gunness, and was buried as such. Ray Lamphere was tried for arson and murder—but because of all the lingering questions surrounding the case, he was convicted only of arson. He received a 20-year prison sentence and died less than a year later of tuberculosis. While in prison he reportedly confessed to a prison minister that he had helped Gunness bury some of her victims—and that the woman in the basement was not her. Gunness had hired a woman from Chicago as a housekeeper just days before the fire, he said, and drugged her, killed her, decapitated her, dressed her in Belle’s clothes, and put her in the basement. He helped Gunness start the fire, he said, and was then supposed to escape with her, but she double-crossed him and left on her own. However, none of his story could be substantiated.
Why sue? Only 3% of all legal cases in the U.S. ever make it to the courtroom.
People reported seeing Belle Gunness at dozens of locations across the U.S. over the following decades. None of those sightings were ever confirmed. Then, in 1931, a woman named Esther Carlson was arrested for the poisoning murder of her husband in Los Angeles...and she reportedly looked a lot like Belle Gunness. Carlson died awaiting trial, but some La Porte residents made the trip to the Los Angeles morgue and viewed the body. They said that they believed it was Gunness.
UPDATE
In 2008 Andrea Simmons, an attorney and graduate student at the University of Indianapolis in Indiana, led a team of forensic biologists to the graveyard where Belle Gunness was buried. With permission from Gunness’s descendants, they dug up the grave with the intent of extracting DNA from the corpse and comparing it to the DNA of living relatives. Results were hoped for by April 28, 2008, the 100th anniversary of the fire at the Gunness farm, but they were, unfortunately, inconclusive. Attempts are ongoing, and someday, possibly soon, the mystery of Belle Gunness, one of the most diabolical serial killers in history, might finally be solved.
* * *
TWO ILLEGAL WORD ORIGINS
• In 1849 a man named William Thompson would walk up to strangers in New York City and, after making friends with them, ask, “Have you confidence in me to trust me with your watch until tomorrow?” If they said yes, Thompson would gratefully borrow the watch...and then keep it. When he was caught, the prosecutors referred to him as a “confidence man.” That didn’t fit on headlines, so newspapers shortened it to “con man.”
• Another trickster in 1840s New York was Alec Hoag. He used prostitutes to lure men into hotel rooms. When the men’s clothes were on the floor, Hoag lifted money from the pockets via a hole in the wall. He was known for his ability to stay one step ahead of the police...and brag about it all over the city. The nickname the cops gave to Hoag survives as a slang term used to describe an intelligent, cocky person: “smart alec.”
That’s teetotaling: In the 1820s, a temperance movement tried to ban coffee and nearly succeeded.
REAL TOYS OF THE CIA
Uncle John loves those clever spy gadgets in the James Bond movies devised by Q. It turns out that some of them are real. Here are a few actual spy tools.
IT LOOKS LIKE: A cigarette
BUT IT’S REALLY: A .22-caliber gun
DESCRIPTION: This brand of cigarette packs a powerful puff. Intended as an escape tool, the weapon only carries a single round, but with good aim it can inflict a lethal wound from close range. To fire the cigarette, the operator must twist the filtered end counterclockwise, then squeeze the same end between the thumb and forefinger. Warning: Don’t shoot the weapon in front of your face or body—it has a nasty recoil.
IT LOOKS LIKE: A pencil
BUT IT’S REALLY: A .22-caliber pistol
DESCRIPTION: Like the cigarette gun, this camouflaged .22 comes preloaded with a single shot. The weapon is fired in the same manner as the cigarette: simply turn the pencil’s eraser counterclockwise and squeeze. The only difference between the weapons is that the pencil has a greater firing distance—up to 30 feet.
IT LOOKS LIKE: A belt buckle
BUT IT’S REALLY: A hacksaw
DESCRIPTION: Fitted inside a hollow belt buckle is a miniature hacksaw. When the buckle is opened, a small amount of pressure is released from the saw’s frame, exerting tension on the blade. This makes the saw a more efficient cutting machine, keeping the blade taut when sawing through, for example, handcuffs. The belt buckle saw will cut through anything from steel to concrete in about 15 minutes and will tear through rope and nylon. Don’t wear belts? Buckles can be put on coats and luggage, too.
IT LOOKS LIKE: Eyeglasses
BUT IT’S REALLY: A dagger
DESCRIPTION: Concealed in the temple arms of these CIA glasses are two sharp blades. Disguised as the reinforcing wire found in most eyeglass frames, the daggers are designed to be used once and broken off at the hilt, inside the victim. The lenses are cutting tools, too. The lower edges are ground to razor sharpness and can be removed by heating or breaking the frames.
Don’t bet on it: 76% of Americans say they have never participated in illegal gambling.
IT LOOKS LIKE: A felt-tip marker
BUT IT’S REALLY: A blister-causing weapon
DESCRIPTION: Don’t mistake this pen for your Sharpie, and be careful: you wouldn’t want it leaking in your pocket. A little over three inches long, the marker distributes an ointment that creates blisters on the skin. In order to activate the applicator, press the tip down on a surface for one minute—then simply apply a thin coating of the colorless oil over any area, such as a keyboard or door handle. The ointment will penetrate clothing and even shoes, and will cause temporary blindness if it comes in contact with the eyes. Blisters will cover the skin wherever contact is made within 24 hours and will last for about a week.
IT LOOKS LIKE: Dentures
BUT IT’S REALLY: A concealment device (and much more)
DESCRIPTION: What could possibly fit inside a dental plate? A lot more than you’d think. Items such as a cutting wire or a compass can be placed in a small concealment tube and hidden under a false tooth. A rubber-coated poison pill can be carried in the same manner. The poison can either be ingested to avoid capture or poured into an enemy’s food and utilized as a weapon. Radio transceivers can be placed in dental plates, with audio being transmitted through bone conduction. The CIA has even created a dental plate that alters the sound of one’s voice. If all of these gadgets prove ineffective, then the dental plate itself can be removed and its sharp scalloped edge used for digging, cutting, or engaging in hand-to-hand combat.
* * *
James Bond: “They always said, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’”
Q: “Thanks to me, they were right.”
—Goldeneye
About 200 thefts of nuclear material are reported each year. Most of it is never recovered.
WHODUNIT?
A young woman is murdered on her wedding night. Her lover is charged with the crime, and the people and newspapers of New York convict him before the trial even begins. Here’s a murder mystery that’s ripped from the headlines...of 1799.
ASENSATIONAL MURDER
On the evening of December 22, 1799, Gulielma “Elma” Sands got dressed up and left her home—a boarding house at 208 Greenwich Avenue, owned by Elias and Catherine Ring. She was never seen alive again. According to Catherine Ring, Elma’s cousin, the young woman was planning to get married that night. Instead, 11 days later, her body was pulled out of the Manhattan Well, which stood near the intersections of Greene and Spring Streets in what is now SoHo, just a short carriage ride from the boarding house.
Elma’s tragic death was the talk of New York. It was the city’s first big murder mystery, and the press and public speculated over who might have killed her. Soon, suspicion fell on a young carpenter named Levi Weeks, who worked for his brother Ezra Weeks, a prominent, wealthy builder. Levi lived in the same boarding house as Elma and had been courting her for some time; the two were said to be lovers, a scandalous situation in the 18th century. A
fter Catherine Ring claimed that Levi was the man Elma had planned to elope with on the night she disappeared, an inquest was held—and Levi Weeks was indicted for murder.
The newspapers, of course, weighed in with their own version of the story, speculating that Levi had seduced an innocent girl and murdered her because he didn’t want to get married. Then fellow boarder Richard Croucher publicly declared that Weeks had an accomplice in New Jersey who’d confessed to the murder. By the time the trial began in 1800, the public already considered Weeks a guilty man. Elma’s sympathizers packed the courtroom, and those who couldn’t get in milled around outside, yelling, “Crucify him!”
LEVI’S LAWYERS
The U.S. legal system was only 11 years old when the Levi Weeks trial began, and the idea that anyone accused of murder deserved more than torture or a quick hanging was still new. Trials ran all day—sometimes until well after midnight. Requests for breaks from exhausted lawyers on either side were frowned upon and often denied. Fortunately for Levi, his wealthy brother Ezra rounded up the most brilliant lawyers of the day—Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and Henry Brockholst Livingston—to defend him.
Jesse James once wrote a press release about a train robbery, which he handed to the engineer.
Hamilton, America’s first Secretary of the Treasury, was one of the Founding Fathers and had been a trusted advisor to President George Washington. Burr was a hero of the Revolutionary War and former New York Senator who would go on to become the third vice president of the United States. Livingston was one of the nation’s most prominent attorneys, and in 1802, he would become a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
LOOKING BAD FOR LEVI
The trial began at 10 a.m. on March 31, 1800. New York Evening Post editor William Coleman wrote a transcript of the proceedings, making the Weeks spectacle America’s first recorded murder trial. After the jury was chosen, the prosecutor presented his case: Weeks had come to live at the Greenwich boarding house in July 1799 and seduced Elma Sands. He became secretly engaged to her sometime in the fall, promising to elope with her on December 22. On that evening, however, Weeks actually took his fiancée to the Manhattan Well, where he killed her. To back up his argument, the prosecutor presented testimony from a long string of witnesses.
Uncle John’s True Crime Page 31
