In this week's Vintage Tribune: 'In March 1908, Asle Helgelien, a South Dakota farmer worried about his missing brother, wrote to Belle Gunness, who had a farm near La Porte, Indiana.'
Sightseers view the holes where several of bodies were found on the Belle Gunness farm in 1908.
Andrew had responded to an ad Gunness placed in the Minneapolis Tidende, a Norwegian-language newspaper:WANTED — a woman who owns a beautifully located and valuable farm in first class condition, wants a good and reliable man as partner in same. Some little cash is required and will be furnished first class security.”
A Tribune headline reported that her corpse had been horribly mutilated: “Fire Victim’s Head Missing.” Alongside Gunness’ headless corpse were the bodies of three young children, apparently seeking refuge from the flames in their mother’s embrace. Meanwhile the authorities were digging in Gunness’ farmyard searching for her missing head. It wasn’t found, but other bodies were. Her neighbors had long looked at her suspiciously. Her husband had mysteriously died, five months after they were married six years earlier.Authorities dig for bodies after a fire on the farm of Belle Gunness in La Porte, Indiana, in 1908. Bodies, alleged to be victims of Gunness, were found buried on the farm.
From coast to coast, newspapers recognized the circulation benefits of the grisly tale. Gunness was proclaimed “the La Porte Ghoul,” a “Female Bluebeard” and “Hell’s Princess.”Local reporters matched their visiting colleagues’ hyperbole. The Chicago Evening American said that if Edgar Allan Poe “were to come back to life he might write a new and more thrilling story of ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’ ” based on Gunness’ farmyard full of graves.
The mystery of her death in La Porte prompted the Chicago police to take another look at her husband’s death. “Considering the suspicious circumstances at the time with present developments, I am led to believe that M.D.A. Sorenson, the first husband of Belle Gunness, was poisoned,” J.B. Miller, the Chicago doctor who conducted the inquest, said in May 1908.By then, La Porte’s authorities realized that Andrew Helgelien was only one of the victims lured to Gunness’ farm.
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