Dr. Katherine Ramsland teaches forensic psychology at DeSales University, and has published 24 books, including The Forensic Science of CSI; The Criminal Mind; and The Science of Cold Case Files. She writes for Court TV’s Crime Library and co-wrote The Unknown Darkness with Gregg McCrary (ret'd FBI). 

Inside the Minds of Mass Murderers: Why They Kill; Cold Case Files; and A Voice for the Dead are Dr. Ramsland's most recent books. Dr. Ramsland's 25th book, the entire history of serial killers, will be published in October.

See Archives for Web Mystery Magazine articles by Dr. Ramsland.

Her website is katherineramsland.com. Direct correspondence to Editor.

        Belle Sorensen Gunness, a Norwegian-American farmer, was an enigmatic figure both in life and in death. Described variously as a criminal most foul and a generous, doting woman who was a hapless victim, her fate was the central factor of a sensational trial during the early 1900s. One newspaper called it the most famous trial in history.

             The best source for information is Sylvia Shepherd’s book, Mistress of Murder Hill, but most compendiums on serial killers also carry an account, as does the LaPorte County Historical Museum in Indiana.

             The sordid part of the tale began on April 28, 1908 when an early morning fire raged through Belle’s home. All efforts to enter the building to rescue the inhabitants were stymied and once it burned down, four bodies were found in the ashes: an adult female and three children, two girls and a boy.

             No one doubted at first that the adult was Belle, although the figure appeared to be much too small…and it was missing its head. While some believed this was due to the fire, it seemed unlikely that the childrens' much more fragile skulls would still be intact.

             The prime suspect in this apparent arson was a former hired hand named Ray Lamphere, whom Belle had unsuccessfully tried to have declared insane. He was even seen near her farm that morning, and he admitted as much, but said he had not felt compelled to warn anyone about the fire. Lamphere was arrested and detained. When the sheriff first approached him, Lamphere was said to have asked about the fire.

             Early in May, investigators began to search the property for the possible remains of Andrew Helgelein, missing for three months. Belle had written many letters imploring him to sell everything and come to her, and when he went to visit, his family had not seen him again. The authorities began to dig in a soft spot in the yard and before long they turned up a gunny sack containing his dismembered body. His legs had been expertly sawed off above the knees, his arms disarticulated, his head removed, and all of his parts shoved into the hole with his torso. Grasped in his hand was some curly brown hair.

             Another soft spot nearby was examined, and that one yielded the skeletal remains of a young girl. Looking further, diggers found the decayed remains of a man and two children. This discovery prompted more exploration and before it was all over some twelve to thirteen sets of remains had been removed from the ground, with the suspicion that there might yet be more. (The exact number is a matter of debate, since some accounts indicate that little was done to ensure that discovered parts actually belonged to specific victims.) The majority of the remains were male, but one set was of an adult woman who was never identified.

             Belle’s history was re-examined and reporters wrote about the sudden inexplicable death in 1900 of her first husband, Mads Sorensen, who had been well-insured for $8,500. Two of her adopted children had died a few years earlier from conditions that might well have been due to poison, and several of her insured establishments had burned down. Belle traded her home in Austin, Illinois, for a farm in LaPorte, Indiana, and soon married Peter Gunness, who died eight months later when, as Belle reported, a meat grinder and jar of scalding water fell on his head (although no burns were present on the body and the blow to his head did not quite fit the supposed weapon).

             Belle then placed matrimonial ads in various papers to lure men with money—many of whom disappeared. That is, until they were found buried on her farm.

             Lamphere seemed surprised about the bodies and mentioned that Belle had asked him to purchase poison and chloroform for her, but later reports indicate that he certainly knew what Belle was doing and might even have assisted her. The real mystery was whether he had actually murdered her. He denied it.

             Public interest ran high, as newspapers increased both their circulation and the amount of space they devoted to the grizzly tale. Thousands of tourists came from miles away to view the farm and catch site of the bodies or parts, still held on the property. People whose loved ones were missing were especially interested, and soon most of the remains were identified via circumstantial evidence.

             Strangely, the debates over Belle’s fate aligned according to political affiliations, with Republicans believing that Belle was dead and Democrats insisting that she had faked her death and gotten away. The corpse in the burned building, they said, was likely a woman she had hired as a housekeeper. In the ruins were found a partially burned book about anatomy and one on hypnosis. When poison was found in the bodies, the Democrats considered this proof for their side—but that, too, was contested.

             A key discovery, three weeks after the fire, was the upper and lower dental bridge, identified as Belle’s, allegedly found in the ashes. Although the coroner now declared Belle to be dead, even then there was debate, since the bridge showed none of the effects from the fire that other metals had. Some people believed it had been planted there to close the case.

            On May 23, 1908, Lamphere was indicted on four counts of murder and one count of arson. He went to trial on November 9—just after the elections. The law partnership of H. W. Worden and Lemuel Darrow (also the mayor) took on his defense. The prosecutor was Ralph Smith.

            Smith had intended to charge Lamphere with the murder of Andrew Helgelein but then changed his mind. Instead, he decided to use the legal forum to get closure about Belle’s fate. If the jury convicted Lamphere of her murder, then she would be definitively identified and declared dead. On its side, the prosecution had the coroner’s declaration of Belle’s demise and a documented history of trouble between Belle and Lamphere. They also had Lamphere’s statement that he had seen the fire, and they had Belle’s bridgework and a set of rings identified as hers. For motive, they said that he and Belle had a falling out over money that she was supposed to pay him for assisting her with the murder and disposal of Helgelein. In addition, he was jealous of Belle’s attention to Helgelein.

             The defense stood by the idea that Belle was alive. They even prepared a subpoena for her. They had witnesses who could counter anything that the prosecution offered as proof, as well as experts who could demonstrate their own theories.

             Jury selection took four days, because few people could say they had not reached an opinion on the matter.

             Smith put more than three dozen witnesses on the stand to prove his case. From those who had discovered the fire and seen the bodies to those who had helped excavate the grounds to those who knew Belle, he indicated that while she was indeed a dastardly sort of criminal, in this case she was nevertheless a victim.

             The real drama of the trial came from the defense. Worden was a strong opponent and used witnesses effectively to open up holes in the prosecution’s case. They were as follows:

•     The coroner never examined the hole that was noted in the head of the male child found in the ashes to determine if he had been shot.

•     The man who had discovered the dental bridge could not be found and several witnesses said they had seen him remove it from his pocket but not from the fire debris.

•     The condition of the bridgework indicated that it had not gone through a fire of the intensity that had destroyed the house.

•     Several witnesses claimed to have seen Belle near the farm in July.

•     The dimensions of the corpse said to be hers could not be adequately explained as shrinkage from fire.

•     The whereabouts of that woman’s missing head was never adequately addressed. (And if the fire destroyed it, then it was too hot for the teeth found on the bridge to survive in good condition—several people had done experiments to prove this.)

•     The motive for Belle committing suicide was never substantiated.

•     Poison found in the burned bodies indicated that someone had deliberately killed them prior to the fire—why would Lamphere kill the children, place them all with Belle and then set the fire?

•     Lamphere had no money, so he could not have killed Belle and then stolen the money he felt he was owed.

•     On the evening before the fire, a witness had seen Belle with a woman of unknown identity, somewhat smaller in stature than her, going to the house.

•     Lamphere had been elsewhere at the time that witnesses say they saw the fire already burning (although Worden did not produce this alibi witness).

             Worden believed that Belle had been under pressure because she had heard from Helgelein’s brother that he was coming to make inquiries about Andrew and she had to think of something fast. On the afternoon before the murder, she bought a large quantity of kerosene, the container for it was found in the basement where she did not keep it as a rule, and the same method she used to kill Helgelein (strychnine and arsenic) had been in evidence in at least three of the bodies burned in the fire (although the prosecutor contended that this could have been introduced via autopsy procedures that rely on arsenic).

             Lamphere had claimed throughout his imprisonment that Belle was not only still alive, but that she had burned down the house, faked her death, and left. He'd even driven her to the railroad station. The defense showed that she had a motive, a criminal pattern, and a character sufficiently devious to do this deed.

             On November 26, on Thanksgiving evening, the jury brought back a verdict of guilty of arson. While they offered a statement that they believed the body in the cellar was that of Belle Gunness, they apparently bought the notion that the woman had committed suicide. They did not think the prosecution had clearly proven a case of murder.

             Lamphere was fined $5,000 and given a term of 2 to 21 years in prison. There he revealed conflicting stories, from actually being involved with the fire to knowing about many more of Belle’s victims and her enormous enrichment from their goods. He also made a statement that he felt certain the body in the fire was hers.

             By some accounts, the political pressures may have influenced how the trial proceeded and how the jury decided. “If it hadn’t been an election year,” writes Sylvia Shepherd, “if the people involved had not been political opponents, if the newspapers of the time had been less partisan, what might the outcome of the case have been?”

             Belle was allegedly sighted numerous times around the country by people who knew her, but always managed to slip away. Then in 1931 in Los Angeles, an elderly woman named Esther Carlson was charged with killing a man for money. Before her trial commenced, she died, and two people who had known Belle recognized her from a photo in the newspaper. Some accounts indicate that the police found a trunk in a room where the deceased woman had been staying and it contained photos of three children who resembled Belle’s.  

             Yet nothing about Belle’s actual death was conclusively resolved.

Copyright 2005 by Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D.
Professor of Forensic Psychology, DeSales University