On this evidence, Lamphere was found guilty of arson but was cleared of murder, and he was sentenced to twenty years in prison. He grew ill while in detention and died of consumption on December 30, 1909.
BELLE’S BACKGROUND
At this stage in the story of Belle Gunness, it will probably be helpful to give some detail about her background. Belle Paulson was born on November 22, 1859, in the small village of Selbu in Norway. Her family were extremely poor and from a very young age, Belle had to work as a farmhand. As she grew older and tired of the hard work and long hours, she grew jealous of her employers’ lifestyles. She started to yearn for money and a different way of life and, in 1884, she married a man by the name of Max Sorenson, a detective for a local department store.
In 1896, the couple moved to Chicago and opened a sweet shop. Unfortunately, the business did not make any money and within a year it had been burned to the ground. When investigators looked into the fire, Belle told them that it had been started by a kerosene lamp that had accidentally exploded. However, when they searched the remains, no such lamp was ever found.
With the money from the insurance, Belle and Max bought their first house in the suburb of Austin. This house was also destroyed by fire in 1898, and once again they used the insurance money to buy a bigger and better home.
The Sorensons had four children – Caroline, Axel, Myrtle and Lucy. Caroline and Axel both died in infancy of acute colitis, the symptoms of which matched with those of poisoning. Both the children were insured and the insurance companies paid out to the grieving parents.
Max himself died on July 30, 1900, which happened to be the only day that two concurrent life insurance policies overlapped. Although the symptoms were those of strychnine poisoning, the Sorenson’s doctor had previously been treating Max for an enlarged heart, and so no autopsy was deemed to be necessary. This was when Belle experienced her first real wealth; the insurance companies paid out $8,500, which was an exceptionally large sum of money in the nineteenth century. She used this money to buy the farm at La Porte, and moved in with her two daughters and a young ward by the name of Jennie Olsen.
Belle got married for a second time on April 1, 1902, to a man named Peter Gunness. Just one week after the wedding, Peter’s infant daughter died while she was in the care of Belle. Peter also died in December 1902. Belle told the coroner that a piece of a sausage grinder had fallen off a shelf and hit her husband on the head. However, one of Belle’s daughters told a friend that, ‘Momma brained Papa with a meat cleaver’. No one took the accusation seriously and the authories ruled that Peter’s death was accidental, which netted Belle a further $3,000 insurance money.
Belle continued to run the farm with the help of hired hands, one of whom was Ray Lamphere, who started to work for her in 1906.
Following the death of her second husband, Belle started to place lonely hearts advertisements in Scandinavian newspapers, in search of husband number three.
Neighbours later reported that they remember seeing several middle-aged men arriving with cases, but no one ever saw them leave. Jennie Olsen disappeared in late 1906, and when friends enquired as to her whereabouts, Belle told them that she had been sent to a Lutheran college in California. Olsen’s was the second body that investigators discovered when they started excavations at the farm. As more and more people went missing, Belle got more and more visitors who had come in search of their loved ones and friends. Ray Lamphere, who was allegedly madly in love with Belle, became insanely jealous of her male visitors, which caused Belle to fire him.
The only person who is believed to have known the full story about the murders was Belle’s closest friend, Liz Smith. She came to live in La Porte shortly after the Civil War ended and is believed to have had several prominent lovers in the area. Liz promised to tell Wirt Worden, Lamphere’s lawyer, the whole story, but unfortunately she was taken ill and died, and consequently her secrets died with her.
deathbed confession
Ray Lamphere, however, gave a detailed confession on his deathbed, which shed light on exactly what had happened to Belle Gunness. The mystery of the headless corpse was finally revealed and she turned out to be a housekeeper that Belle had hired just days before the fire.
As more and more evidence was mounting up against Belle, she decided to make plans for the perfect escape. Belle, according to Lamphere, had drugged the housekeeper, then hit her over the head before decapitating her. She then took the head and dumped it in a local swamp, after first tying weights to it to ensure it did not come to the surface. Lamphere then claimed that she doped her own children with chloroform before smothering them to death and then dragged their bodies and that of the headless corpse to the cellar. She dressed the corpse in her own clothes and then removed her false teeth and placed them next to the body, so that people would think that it was her own body that had burned in the fire.
With the help of Lamphere she then set fire to the house and fled. Her savings accounts, which amounted to vast sums, had been cleared, and so it would appear Belle Gunness got away with all her ill-gotten gains.
In the years after the fire, there were many reported sightings of Belle Gunness, but it will probably never be known what really happened on the night of April 28, 1908. Some say she was a criminal mastermind, who carefully planned her escape, while others are still convinced that she perished that night in the fire.
Nannie Doss
Nancy Hazle Doss was born in 1905 in the Blue Mountain region of Alabama in the USA. She later became known as Nannie and also ‘the black widow’, because she not only killed off her husbands but members of her family as well. When she was eventually arrested, Nannie found the entire police interrogation highly amusing and became famous for her girlish giggle, which resulted in the police giving her the nickname ‘The Giggling Granny’. Nannie Doss never showed any remorse and many believe that she never even realised she had done anything wrong.
the young nannie
Twentieth-century records show that Nannie Doss was born out of wedlock and that her mother, Louisa, married James Hazel some time later. James Hazel had a bad temper and if he didn’t get his own way, he made his feelings known by taking it out on his terrified wife and daughter. Nannie’s school attendance was erratic; farm work always came first, and if she was needed to help out her schoolwork had to come second.
Nannie’s method of escape from the daily torment was in reading her mother’s romance magazines, which gave her an insight into how she believed life should be. She also developed a penchant for prunes in her early years, something that she used to her advantage in her later life.
Her mental instability was blamed on an accident when she was travelling by train to Alabama to visit a relative. The train had to make an emergency stop and Nannie hit her head on the seat in front of her. After this she suffered from blackouts, mood swings and severe headaches for the rest of her life. As she got older, Nannie became more and more obsessed with her mother’s magazines and scanned the lonely hearts adverts, dreaming of the day she would be allowed to go courting. Her father did not allow her to date as he considered her time was far too precious to waste it on socialising, and he found more and more jobs for her to do around the farm. As each day went by, Nannie grew more and more unhappy. She was forbidden from wearing pretty clothes or makeup, as her father said it would only make her look like a whore. He told her that when it was time for her to marry, he would choose her a suitable husband.
the one that got away
Just as her father had promised, in 1921, he forced Nannie to marry Charley Braggs. Nannie worked with Charley at the Linen Thread Company and had only known him a few months before her father arranged the wedding. Instead of giving Nannie the life she dreamed of, marriage tied her down even more. The only family Charley had was his unmarried mother, who was a very dominant figure who made Nannie’s life a misery. Charley and Nannie had four daughters, the eldest, Melvina born in 1923 and the youngest, Florine, who was born
in 1927. To try and drown her sorrows, Nannie took to drinking and smoking, and over the years the couple spent less and less time in each other’s company.
In 1927, Nannie’s two middle daughters died from ‘accidental’ food poisoning. Charley, who was suspicious of his wife, decided to leave and took their eldest daughter with him. Florine had only just been born and was still dependent on her mother, so Charley decided to leave her behind. Charley had told his mother that he had become frightened of his own wife, who would never eat anything that she had cooked, especially if she was in one of her ‘bad’ moods. Nannie’s mother, to the contrary, believed that her daughter was a loving and happy mother and that she would do nothing to harm her own children.
husband number two
To support herself and her baby, Nannie was forced to take employment at a cotton mill and went back to live with her parents. Once again, she returned to reading her favourite lonely hearts advertisements, but this time it went further than just dreaming. Nannie decided to write to the men that took her fancy, and when a 23-year-old factory worker by the name of Frank Harrelson wrote her a romantic poem, she was delighted. Nannie not only wrote back in a flirtatious manner, but she also went to the trouble of baking him a cake in the hope of luring him to Blue Mountain.
Frank was flattered and very taken with the picture of a very pretty, young lady. When he arrived on Nannie’s doorstep, he told her that her picture had not done her justice and that he was captivated by what he called ‘the fire in her eyes’.
Frank and Nannie married in 1929 and for a while they were truly happy. Nannie’s happiness, however, was to be short-lived as just a couple of months later she discovered her new husband was an alcoholic. Several times the police had to knock on Nannie’s door to tell her that her husband was drunk and had been brawling at the local tavern. Nannie was not amused and her moods became darker and darker.
Surprisingly, Nannie put up with Frank’s drinking for several years, and even when he started to beat her, she stayed put. Although she was desperately unhappy, the marriage lasted for sixteen years – perhaps Nannie had not yet perfected the art of getting rid of her husbands.
the loving grandma!
Nannie’s two surviving daughters, Melvina and Florine, were now grown up and married. In 1943 Melvina had a son, Robert, and in 1945 she was pregnant again. The labour was a difficult one and, frightened that she might die, she asked for her mother to be at her bedside. Nannie was the dutiful mother and stayed with her daughter throughout the night, attempting to comfort her. Just before dawn, Melvina, Nannie and her son-in-law, Mosie, celebrated the birth of a lovely baby girl.
Only one hour later, when Mosie was asleep beside his wife in a chair and Melvina still dopey from the ether, the baby mysteriously died. Melvina was puzzled because the child had been born healthy, but she thought she remembered in her hazy state, seeing her mother poke something in the side of the baby’s head. At the time she dismissed the matter, not believing that her mother would wish to harm her granddaughter. However, her husband confirmed her suspicions when he said he had seen Nannie turning a hatpin around in her fingers earlier that evening.
Melvina’s other child, Robert, also died six months later, while being looked after by Nannie. Melvina had gone to stay with her father, Charley Braggs, following an argument with her husband, and had asked Nannie to look after Robert. His death was a mystery, and doctors recorded it as asphyxiation from unknown causes. Nannie played the grieving grandma and wept and wailed when they lowered the tiny coffin into the ground. What her daughter didn’t know, was that Nannie had collected a $500 insurance policy, which she had taken out on Robert shortly after his birth.
Nannie, having perfected the art of murder, decided that now was the time to do something about her husband, Frank Harrelson. All she had to do now was wait for the right opportunity.
goodbye number two
On the night of September 15, 1945, Frank Harrelson had spent his usual evening down the local tavern. He returned home much the worse for wear and demanded his conjugal rights. Rather than suffer a severe beating, Nannie lay back on her bed and stared blankly at the ceiling, vowing that she would get her revenge.
The next morning, Nannie was tending her beloved garden when she hit something hard with her spade. What she uncovered was her husband’s corn liquor jar, which he thought he had so carefully hidden. This gave Nannie an idea, and she took the jar to her shed, tipped out some of the liquor and replaced it with rat poison. She hid the jar back in the garden and continued to tend her roses.
Frank died the same evening of excruciating stomach pains and as he lay dying, Nannie could be seen at her kitchen sink washing out the empty corn jar with soap.
husband number three
Determined not to be on her own for too long, Nannie started scouring the adverts once again. Husband number three was a man called Arlie Lanning. Nannie had moved several times since the death of Frank, and when she met Arlie, she was living in Lexington, North Carolina. The couple were married within days of meeting, but he turned out to be little better than husband number one or two. Arlie had a reputation for being a drunkard and a womaniser, whereas Nannie was thought to be a brave and caring martyr. In fact, his drinking was so bad that he hardly noticed if his wife went missing for days on end. Nannie often took off to escape, sometimes going to visit her sister who was suffering from cancer or to visit Arlie’s elderly mother.
When Nannie was at home she played the perfect housewife and her neighbours often remarked on how beautifully she kept her home. She became an active member of the Church and made close friends with the ministers and their families. Everyone sympathised with Nannie, and her friends did all they could to shelter her from the shocking behaviour of her husband.
The more Arlie drank, the more his health deteriorated until one day he was unable to get out of bed, suffering from excruciating pain. He only lasted a couple of days and died in February 1950. The doctor who examined him shortly after he died said that there was no necessity for an autopsy due to the fact that he considered his body just couldn’t take any more alcohol abuse.
The whole town turned out for Arlie’s funeral, not because they liked the man, but because they wanted to support his grieving widow. Nannie explained to her friends that the last thing her husband had taken had been a cup of coffee and a bowl of prunes, and that he became exceptionally ill and died just two days later. Ironically, the last words Arlie said to his wife was, ‘It must have been the coffee!’
Arlie had left a will leaving everything to his sister, but oddly the house burned to the ground two months after he died, destroying any evidence. The only thing to survive the fire was Nannie’s beloved television, which she had taken to be repaired just the day before. Nannie went to stay with Arlie’s elderly mother while the insurance company carried out their checks. The insurance company eventually mailed a cheque to ‘Arlie Lanning, deceased’, which Nannie rapidly cashed. Nannie was forced to leave North Carolina shortly afterwards when Mrs Lanning died suddenly in her sleep.
Nannie then turned up at her sister Dovie’s house in Gadsden, Alabama, where she nursed her until her condition worsened. She died in her sleep on June 30, 1950.
husband number four
Nannie was now forty-seven, and her looks were certainly starting to fade. Her once lithe figure had widened considerably, and a double chin and glasses changed the appearance of what was once a very pretty face. Knowing that she no longer turned heads as she walked down the streets, rather than using her traditional method of reading the lonely hearts advertisements, Nannie decided to join the Diamond Circle Club. For a meagre $15 per annum, the correspondence club sent out a monthly news-letter giving details of its latest members. Nannie decided that she needed to attract a more mature man, rather than the handsome youths she had previously gone for, and a retired businessman by the name of Richard L. Morton of Emporia, Kansas, caught her eye.
Richard was smitten by Nannie
and he immediately wrote to the Diamond Circle Club requesting that their names be removed from their availability list. He even wrote to the club thanking them for introducing him to the ‘sweetest and most wonderful woman I have ever met’. Richard and Nannie decided not to waste any time, and they married in October 1952.
Despite being a middle-aged man, Richard had kept his good looks. He was tall, dark and half American Indian. Unlike her previous husbands, he showered her with expensive gifts and life in the plains of Kansas was, for a while anyway, quite blissful for Nannie. Within months, however, the marriage turned sour, as Richard ran out of money. Not only was he in debt up to his ears, but Nannie soon found out that he also had a mistress, which he told her in no uncertain terms, ‘he had no intention of dropping’.
Richard’s visits into town became more and more prolific and each time he stayed longer and longer. Little did he realise at that time that he had messed with the wrong woman!
His life was probably spared temporarily by the fact that Nannie’s father died and her mother, Louisa, asked if she could come and stay with the couple. However, after just a couple of days with her daughter and son-in-law, Louisa complained of violent stomach cramps and suddenly died. Just three months later, Richard was also buried, having died of similar symptoms.
Despite the number of deaths that surrounded Nannie, no one seemed to question her. Once again it seems she got away with murder.
SAM DOSS
Sam Doss was a highway inspector for the state of Oklahoma. Despite being fifty-nine, he looked far younger and had retained his good looks. He was a home-loving man who took great care of his money, unlike the previous men that Nannie had been associated with. Nannie was delighted when Sam proposed to her in June 1953, but she soon tired of his boring ways.
Criminal Masterminds Page 8
