True Crimes around the world

Belle Gunness

Belle Gunness, born Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth (November 11, 1859[3] – possibly April 28, 1908), was a Norwegian-Americanserial killer who was active in Illinois and Indiana between 1884 and 1908. Gunness is thought to have killed at least fourteen people, most of whom were men she enticed to visit her rural Indiana property on the promise of marriage, while some sources speculate her involvement in as many as forty murders.  Gunness seemingly died in a fire in 1908, but it is popularly believed that she faked her death. Her actual fate is unconfirmed.

Early life

Brynhild Paulsdatter Storset (Belle Gunness) was born in Selbu, Norway on November 11, 1859 to Paul and Berit Storset; she was the youngest of eight children. She was confirmed at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1874. At age 14, she began working for neighboring farms by milking and herding cattle to save enough money for passage to New York.
  She moved to the United States in 1881.  When she was processed by immigration at Castle Garden, she changed her first name to Belle, then travelled to Chicago to join her sister, Nellie who had immigrated several years earlier.

In Chicago, while living with her sister and brother-in-law, she worked as a domestic servant, then got a job at a butcher's shop cutting up animal carcasses, until her first marriage in 1884.

Deaths associated with Gunness

Mads Sorenson and children

Belle Gunness married Mads Sorenson in 1884.
 Sorenson and Gunness owned a candy store which burned to the ground. The couple’s home had also burned down, and both instances granted the couple insurance payouts.

Two babies in their home died from inflammation of the large intestine, which can result from poisoning. Belle had insured both of the children and collected a large insurance check after each death. Neighbors gossiped about the babies, since Belle never
appeared to be pregnant.

Sorenson had purchased two life insurance policies. On July 30, 1890, both policies were active at the same time, as one would expire that day, and the other began. Sorenson died of cerebral hemorrhage that day. Gunness explained he had come home with a headache and she provided him with quinine powder for the pain; she later checked on him and he was dead. Gunness collected money from both the expiring life insurance policy, and the one that went into effect that day, making a total of $5,000. With the insurance money, she moved to La Porte, Indiana, and bought a pig farm.

Peter Gunness

Belle married Peter Gunness on April 1, 1902. The following week, while Peter was out of the house, his infant daughter died of unknown cause in Belle's care.

Peter died eight months later due to a skull injury. Belle explained that Peter reached for something on a high shelf and a meat grinder fell on him, smashing his skull.
 The district coroner convened a coroner's jury, suspecting murder, but nothing came of the case. Belle collected $3000 insurance money for Peter's death.

Disappearances

Gunness began placing marriage ads in Chicago newspapers in 1905. One of her ads was answered by a Wisconsin farmhand, Henry Gurholt. After travelling to La Porte, Gurholt wrote his family, saying that he liked the farm, was in good health, and requesting that they send him seed potatoes. When they failed to hear from him after that, the family contacted Gunness. She told them Gurholt had gone off with horse traders to Chicago. She kept his trunk and fur overcoat.

John Moe of Minnesota answered Gunness's ad in 1906. After they had corresponded for several months, Moe travelled to La Porte and withdrew a large amount of cash. Although no one ever saw Moe again, a carpenter who did occasional work for Gunness observed that Moe's trunk remained in her house, along with more than a dozen others.