Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 150 - Belle Gunness and Her Murder Farm

Episode Date: July 29, 2019

Hinker du teh hoingy boingy! Uff da! Uff da! Tiddly winks teh dingy thingy. Don't worry - not all of today's show is in Norwegian (and neither is that gibberish). Talking about Norway's infamous export, serial killer Belle Gunness, today on the Suck. It seems as if she had begun to operate a "murder farm" in Laporte Indiana at the dawn of the twentieth century. We'll never know exactly how many people Belle killed, but we do know a lot about her story. Motivated by money, she sacrificed both strangers and family to accomplish her goal of becoming wealthy and lured an unknown number of men to Indiana under the false pretense of buying into her farm... and then they disappeared forever. More true crime today on Timesuck! Feel the Heat album Link: https://bit.ly/2WVJuax Donating $2600 this month: 100+ Abandoned Dogs of Everglades Florida Rescuehttp://100plusabandoneddogsofevergladesflorida.org/ Come to my standup special taping at Crofoot in Detroit on Friday, October 18th. Two shows! First is at 6:30PM: https://bit.ly/2N3E1tP . Second show is at 9PM: https://bit.ly/2FoADU6 Happy Murder Tour Standup dates: (full calendar at http://dancummins.tv) August 1-3 Charlotte, NC The Comedy Zone CLICK HERE for tix! August 4 Richmond, VA The Funny Bone CLICK HERE for tix! August 9-10 Orlando, FL The Improv CLICK HERE for tix! *** LIVE TIMESUCK *** August 11th - Orlando, FL The Improve CLICK HERE for tix! Listen to the best of my standup on Spotify! (for free!) https://spoti.fi/2Dyy41d Timesuck is brought to you by the following sponsor: Harry's! Get a special deal on a trial offer for Harry's when you go to HARRYS.COM/timesuck Watch the Suck on Youtube: https://youtu.be/bHWOb6laoIY Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Want to try out Discord!?! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions: https://badmagicmerch.com/pages/contact Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG, @timesuckpodcast on Twitter, and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're almost 5000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

Bel Gunnace, Hells Bell, Lady Bluebeard, Black Widow, Bel Gunnace had a lot of nicknames and a changing legal name as you'll find out today. This Norwegian American immigrant of many names, this daughter of poor Scandinavian farmers, would be an incredible American dream, racked to riches success story. If she just wouldn't have made her fortune off of a series of cold-blooded murders, most of which took place in La Port, Indiana. On her farm, a farm that became known as the Murder Farm. She buried over 10 people, including her own daughter

on that murder farm, and she fed who knows how many other victims to her hogs. Bell killed to collect an insurance fraud, she ran numerous murderous romance scams, and she killed to cover her tracks in Chicago and Indiana, mainly in Indiana at the dawn of the 20th century. And then right what it looked like, she might finally get caught. It tastes just a bit of justice. It appears that she faked her own death, sacrificing not one, not two, but three of her own children to do so. And then it's like she got away with the murders of anywhere from 13 to 42 people to possibly many, many more. We'll never know exactly how many people Bell killed.

We'll never know exactly how many lonely men answered her newspaper ads looking for a man with some cash to invest in and help run a beautiful farm alongside a loving woman, men who with rare exception were never heard from again once they answered that ad. We do know an awful lot about her life, though, thanks to all of the interviews conducted in the sensationalized wake of the discovery of her murder farm, interviews with Bell's family, neighbors, lawyers, bankers, other business associates, more, and all that information gave us

more than enough fodder to spend a darkly delightful bloody little murderous yarn on another true crime addition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald another true crime edition of Time Suck. Work can wait me to act the time suck time. Happy Monday. Welcome back inside the cold to the curious. If you're not curious, get the fuck out of here. We don't want your I already know everything there is to know about everything, kind of

poisonous energy killing our vibe. I'm Dan Cummins, Bo Jangle's ball scratcher, Nimrod's toothpick, Lucifer's pool boy, and yes, that was the real Michael motherfuckin McDonald. You just heard in the intro today. YAMO FOR REAL! Met the sweet bar to the suck at a meet and greet at Northern Quest, Casino just outside of Spokane, Washington last Tuesday. And he was nice enough to say what you just heard. Does he actually know what time suck is?

Ah, no, no he doesn't. Would he have said that if he did? Ah! I'm not sure they would have. Do I hope to now build a relationship with him? Of course I do. It's just so it's big enough. I want to get him on here for a duet.

I want to debut new tracks off his future albums. I'm not even kidding. Yamotime suck. Ho ho ho ho. Yamot fulfilled destiny. Recording today in the suckdown is in Cortalena, Idaho, I'm happy today. Thanks once again to our Patreon space lizards for helping us to donate $2,600 this month

to 100 plus abandoned dogs of Everglades, Florida rescue, link in the episode description. If you'd like to find out more, donate yourself. Donating even more money to another charity next week. All thanks to space lizard support. Thanks to all the time, StarCars who came out to the Liberty Township Funnybone near Cincinnati, Ohio, this past Friday and Saturday. Thanks for letting me make funny your spaghetti and cheese and hobo chili, local cuisine abomination.

I had a lot of fun. Charlotte, North Carolina, at the Comedy Zone, this week in August 1st and the 3rd, hope to capture the magic. Last time I was in Charlotte, that's so much fun last time. This Sunday, August 4th, Richmond, Virginia at the funny bones, it's going to be packed, it's going to be some fun shows. August 9th and 10th in Orlando at the improv doing stand up. Sunday, August 11th, a live Ant Hill kids cult suck in Orlando. Queen of the Suck lens, you're going to be there in Orlando. So will Tom and Dan from a mediocre time with Tom and Dan, I can't wait to blow their minds with that horrific

tail. That's going to be a lot of fun. Hopefully this time we'll get it recorded after that. But yeah, those great guys, mediocre time with Tom and Dan, great podcasts. After that Thursday, August 29th at the comedy store in Hollywood showbiz. That's how he do it in Hollywood. And then August 30th, September 1st, August 31st, at the comedy store in La Jolla, just outside of San Diego. Ticket selling well for the special taping, upcoming, I'm feeling good about this next hour special. It's going to be the most ridiculous shit I've ever set on stage at the Crow foot ballroom, Detroit, October 18th. Looks like both shows are going to sell out quite a bit in advance. Get tickets early if you want to go.

Take it links in the episode description. Two more quick things that we're off and running. And the first thing is free. For you Pandora peeps, for you stand up fans, comedian Chad Daniels and I did another round of behind the bit. It's our second one, talking about tracks off our most recent stand up albums and about how much life has changed the past two years for us both after doing stand up for a long, long time.

Just search behind the bit, Dan Cummins on your Pandora app and it shows right up and you can listen to it in order this time. You don't have to bounce around. They got the player figured out. You're fucking around. One short ad. If you don't have premium, if you do have Pandora premium, no ads, and then off you go. Hope you like it.

It will be behind the scenes stand up, information. And finally a question. Do you like showbiz? Do you even know how do they do it in Hollywood? Got a new Albert fish tea in the store, not as aggressive this time with the graphics. No peanut butter mentioned on this one. This tea is all about doing what you have to do to make it in the world of showbiz. It's all about Hollywood.

The shirt is made out of 110% creamy, fresh, steamy, hot out of the whole peanut butter, mm-hmm, just like mommy used to make. Is that is how they do it in Hollywood? And this is how we do it with Bell Gunnus here today. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Bell Gunnus is our focus on this the 150th episode of Time Suck. 150 consecutive Mondays of the Suck.

I feel really good to me. I'm pumped up. Coming up on three years. Haven't missed a Monday yet. I'm proud of that. Hope I can keep it going for a long time. Your support makes it possible. And I thank you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, the case of Bel Gunnace, such a unique case on so many levels as a female serial killer. Gunnace is quite a bit more brutal than most other mass killing women while murdered by poison is the most common way for women to commit serial killings, which Gunnace did. Bel also seemed to have bludgeoned many of her victims to death, which was unnecessary, since they were already poisoned in many cases, also possessing butcher skills, cut them into pieces after they were dead, also accused of feeding a lot of those pieces to hawks. She was not squeamish, Bell Gunnace.

Also unique for the amount of victims for a female serial killer, thought by most Bell experts to have killed over 40 people that would put her in the top five for female serial killers if all of those murders were 100% confirmed. Perhaps the most uncommon aspect about the Bell gunner story is how she never got into trouble. She came close to getting caught several times, but time after time she would commit crimes from fraud to arson to murder. And even when she was basically

caught red handed would still get away with it. And then when it finally looked like she was going to get caught, well, you'll find out what she did to escape. So let's begin examining the life and crimes of quite possibly the most prolific female serial killer in the United States history, a woman with even less maternal instincts than Casey Antony with with today's Time Suck timeline. Bel Gunnus was born on November 11, 1859 as Brinhealed, Potsdamer Storset, in a very rural area of Central Norway. Big time humble beginnings. She was born near the lake of Selbu, near the

west coast of Norway, growing up in a place called Ingbya, that the internet doesn't give a shit about because I'm guessing around 10 people live there. If they even live there at all now. And it's more of a local name for a certain area, as opposed to a proper town. I get it. There were communities like that where I grew up. I lived for two years in Pinehurst, Idaho, not the town of Pinehurst, not far from Corde de Laine. The patch of about 10 houses with a small general store, slash cafe, slash gas station,

and a church, the little area that at least used to have a sign on the highway that said Pinehurst. I went to school with kids from Race Creek, Slate Creek, Pollock, Fall Creek, Lucille, Elcric, even though there are no Idaho towns by those names. There are just terms to describe areas where a few families lived. That seems to be what Ingbyah Norway is or at least what it was. Really people claim Sel, as her hometown. Inba was one of several tiny little hamlets located within the district of sailbo,

which is located about seven hours north of Oslo, and not far, about 60 kilometers or 37 miles from central Norway's largest city of Trondheim. Trondheim was the capital of Norway during the Viking age, and about 200,000 metal love and Scandinavians live there today. Metallica just did an outdoor show there on July 13th. Based on the YouTube video, it looks like about a quarter of the city showed up for it. It's pretty badass. I listened to that concert while putting together a lot of today's notes.

Metal feels appropriate for Bell's black widow tale. Other than Trondheim, almost no one lives in this part of Norway. The population density of Selbu very low then, even today the area has only about 4,000 people in total. One estimate has the population at the time of Bell's life around 5,400, mostly farmers and fishermen. The future serial killers full name of Brind Hill, Paul Statterstorset comes from the custom of including the name of the farm on which your family lived and worked in your name. Bell's family worked on a farm called the Storset Farm.

Good thing her family didn't work on the Dingleberry Farm or the shit for Brains Farm. We've ended up with a way less desirable name. Very little is known about Brains Hills earliest years. There are a few official documents, excuse me, few official documents that were laboriously dug up later by historians, including confirmation records, census records, and the like, but reliable facts about her background details about her childhood praise sparse. Her sharecropper and former stone mace and father Paul Peterson's Dorset was a native

of the area and one of its poorest members. I feel like that says a lot. I don't get the feeling that this area is full of a lot of hoidy, toyty folk, not a lot of gated communities. Probably, you know, a few relatively well off farm owners and then just a bunch of very poor farmers. And Paul was one of the poorest of those poor farmers. He leased about an acre of the store set farm where he raised a few cows, sheep and goats grew just barely enough barley oats and potatoes to keep his wife, bear it all stutter, and their eight children from starving. Eight kids. I guess we know how these two kept warm in the terrible Norwegian winners in the days

before heaters. This part of Norway averages freezing temperatures for five months out of the year. Brinhill was the youngest of Paul and bear its children. How adorable. Future monster was once a cute baby girl of the family. Isn't it a weird thought that all cold blood serial killers were once cute little babies? Like other porn Nordic children of the time, Bren Hill was expected to perform a variety

of chores from an early age, including milking, churning, drawing water, watching over the cattle to ensure they didn't wander off. All this work would make her a strong child, and she would grow to be a strong as hell woman, like genuinely physically strong based on accounts of her later life. If she would have only had powerlifting to channel her energy into instead of fraud and murder, she could have set some strength records that might still stand today. She was later like, like, not totally weirdly strong because of her family or excuse me, because her family couldn't afford, you know, hardwood for the family fire. She was also sent out

daily to collect snorkewist, tiny dried up twigs of the spruce tree normally used for Kimmy. That's when you know that you're super, duper poor. When you can't afford proper wood for the family fire, when you get a keep the family warm with snorkewess twigs. Because of the twig situation, some of her neighbors gave her the demeaning nickname, it's a snorkewist pala, roughly translated as Paul's twig daughter. This made me laugh so hard when I first read it. That to me is the exact type of insult I would make up if I was parroting some absurd Scandinavian character. I don't know why just reads very Scandinavian to me. Ooh, look who we're having here, huh?

If it isn't Paul's twig doctor, where's your twigs? Twig doctor. Ooh, look at the twig doctor. Cry her little twig tears. Cry twiggy, cry, take your tiny sticks, run away to home with a fish, nervous. Later insults would tend to be directed at Paul's twig daughters appearance. As Brittany Hill grew, it's apparent to many that she was not going to be a wildly attractive person.

According to some accounts, at least as an adult, when frowning her face strongly resembled a toad. I thought this was a pretty cruel way to describe somebody. When I looked at several pictures of her when she was older, not entirely wrong. Although, I gotta say, there are a few pictures of her when she's a young woman, where I think she's pretty hot, actually. But beauties in the eye of the beholder beholder, and most did not seem to be hold any beauty when looking at Belle.

Descriptions from years later would paint a picture of a woman with a large head, small eyes, short nose, and a wide, fat-lipped mouth. Man, women sadly get judged by contemporariesaries far harsher than men usually. And when Bell was judged, she tended to get judged very harshly. When it comes to serial killers though, generally not an attractive lot, you know, just, I mean, Bundy was the exception. Bell was, I think, far more attractive than like a John Wayne gacy or Albert fish or BDI Gary Ridgeway.

Gunn is wood managed to pull in some pretty handsome and healthy and wealthy weans. So for whatever she may have lacked in the loc she apparently made up for in charm back to her childhood in June of 1874 at the age of 14. Brin Hill was confirmed at a local evangelical Lutheran church, her religious instructor pastor Agaton Hansstein, who was well known as the most strict preacher the region had ever had, according to a contemporary, evaluated her as being good in religious knowledge and diligence, a ranking that he said only half the girls

obtained. And then he said, but to be fair, it is easier for Brinhill to focus on Jesus since he's the only man who could ever love her. I mean, for Christ's sake, look at her fucking face. That face is why Jesus wept. And that was, that's pretty harsh. Pretty brutal words coming from a pastor that I, of course, made up. That same year, the future mass murdering bell was hired out as a dairy maid to a neighbor named Roddy, who would later describe her as a diligent human being and always behaved well. So some, you know, Norwegian thought she was hardworking, respectful, God-fearing.

Others didn't care for Paul's twig daughter. She was referred to by other neighbors as a liar, full of unpretty tricks, referred to as scum on society. When Bren Hill was just a little kid, an older sister moved to the United States and she began to dream to move into America as well and become wealthy, no more burning twigs. What about murder? When did she first turn to killing? Perhaps as early as 1877, when she was either 17 or 18, something allegedly happened

at some point that year. We don't have the exact date. Brenhill possibly turned into a murderer or at the very least a person who started to fantasize about murder Or maybe she didn't have any thoughts. This is speculation. I I sailed this because you know the sources we found They cannot verify for sure that anything happened to be on 1877 But there's a lot of stories I decided to include because it is part of her legend According to one version of this story, Brindhill attended a country dance in 1877 while pregnant. And at this dance, she was attacked by an unarmed man who kicked her in the stomach, causing

her to miscarry. This man who was known to come from a rich family was never prosecuted by Norwegian authorities. In another version of the tale, Bren Hill worked for a wealthy landowner who impregnated her. It already feels more likely than the tale of the unknown man to me. The landowner and Bren Hill were sleeping together while Brinhill worked and lived on his farm. And she got pregnant, then he beat her up, punching her, repeatedly in the stomach to induce

a miscarriage. And there are similar versions, other versions of the story, many claiming to have come from those who knew her all based around some dude, getting Brinhill pregnant, then beating her until she miscarried, then getting away with it and having nothing to do with her. This experience, if it even happened, could obviously drastically change somebody's outlook on humanity forever. Me personally, I'm not sure I buy it, bells later murders, similar to H.H. Holmes, the serial killer she reminds me of, seemed to be motivated primarily by money, and they were very calculated and planned out murders, and typically not very messy. Cold killings committed for insurance fraud, as opposed to emotional killings based out of

revenge for being victimized earlier in life. That's just my two cents. Once she got to America a few years later, there would be no more speculation as to whether or not she was killing. She began to for sure murder in 1881. 21-year-old Brenthold sent out for the third largest Norwegian settlement in the world at that time outside of Norway. Chicago, Illinois, did not know Chicago had such strong Scandinavian roots.

Odin loved the windy city. Chicago in the 1880s had just rebuilt itself from the ashes of a massive fire. And I should say in the world outside of Scandinavia, definitely third largest settlement in the United States. I'm rethinking my world call there. I think it was written as the U.S. I don't know why I fished hailed it up to world there. Chicago in the 1880s had just rebuilt itself from the ashes of a massive fire that had made a third of its citizens homeless overnight in 1871.

It quickly regained its economic strength, became one of the world's most modern cities with almost 20,000 Norwegians living in Chicago by the time Brinhill was ready to move there. Those who proceeded her set up Norwegian communities that had Norwegian language newspapers, schools, even churches, it was pretty easy to have a life and get by and you didn't have to learn English if you didn't want to. Norwegian immigrants have a long history in Chicago. They were among the earliest settlers to the area, establishing a colony when Chicago is nothing more than just a cluster of crude

timber buildings planted on the swampy shores of Lake Michigan. In 1850, there were 562 Norwegians living in Chicago, making them the third largest immigrant group in the area after the German and Irish. Ten years years later the number had increased threefold by 1870, Norwegian-born Chicago's numbered more than 8,000. The Norwegian communities took pride in their low crime rates and their clean streets. And then in the late 1870s, one of Brinhill's sisters, Olina, who was 10 years older than Brinhill, moved to Chicago where she'd met and married another Norwegian named John R. Larson. It was Alina who changed her name to Nelly when she arrived in the U.S., who invited Brinhill to come live with her. And then Alina Nelly,

is who seems to have also paid to bring Brinhill Bell to America. Brinhill's quest would first start with the voyage from Trontheim, Norway, to the English port city of Hull aboard the steamship Tosso, not an easy trip. I get seasick and can't handle modern boats, not on the ocean. Only reason I survived the cruise earlier this year is because I was literally taking three different motion sickness medications at the same time. And I was sleeping about 15 hours a day. I went out about a hundred yards from shore. What was supposed to be just a little, little 30 minutes, little sailboat trip with my son, Kyle, recently into Lune, Mexico on a tiny sailboat in the Caribbean where the water was not choppy at all.

Again, very near the beach. And then I asked to come back after about 10 minutes because I knew I'd be throwing up if we stayed out on the water much longer. I would have quite possibly vomited myself to death aboard the Tassau. And those long coming to America voyages across the Atlantic have always sounded like a nightmare to me. I would have just stayed in the old country for sure. During the four day crossing of the North Sea, the bulk of the Tassel's travelers remained

below decks. Can't imagine a terrible in-steerage, huddled in groups, chilling on the narrow wooden shelves that served as bunks, even in good weather. The Tassel was apparently not the best built ship, tended to roll about on the waves. And as various letters and journal entries attest, sea sickness was so common that even passengers accustomed to sailing often made ill by the pervasive stench of vomit. I would have for sure died. They were just family laying in a pool of their own tears and vomit.

For those who could stomach the stench enough to eat, the ship offered three meals daily, though promotional brochures described the Tasty's menu in glowing terms. The testimony of several passengers tell a different story. One pastor said, for breakfast, there was always sweet tea without milk and dry hard biscuits, the same for supper. There was butter, but it was so rancid that we could not digest it. Fun. For dinner, soup with meat, but there was no taste to the soup, and the meat was as salty

as herring. One day, we had salted fish with a dash of soup, but it was inedible. We just ended up dumping our portions out into the sea. She must have been truly terrible, because have you ever seen what Norwegians actually enjoyed to eat? Old dried cod, sheep's brains, still delicacies in Norway today. When someone used to eating ludifisc and Smileyhoove, it's complaining about the food. You know, it's very, very bad.

Another observer wrote about the particularly vile upper deck of the ship saying, small cramped dark spaces without water, the entrance is in no way protected from the weather. All together, more evil smelling, unsatisfactory places are difficult to imagine. Wow. Okay. If Yelp had existed, I feel like the Taso would have had a consistent one star rating. When the voyage was finally over, most of these vomit covered steamers, Dr. Quebec, New York, or Boston, from there, the new arrivals from Norway would make their way by boat, rail and wagon to their final destinations.

The most popular places were Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, and Washington state. Most settled in small farm communities, although others chose Nordic clusters in cities like Minneapolis, Seattle, and especially Chicago. Shortly after arriving in Chicago, moving in with her big sister and her husband, Bryn Hild, like Nelly and countless other her, her big sister and her husband, Brynn Hilld, like Nelly and countless other immigrants before her adopted a new American name. That's when Brynn Hilld Paul Stutterd's store set became Bella Peterson.

Bella would later be shortened further to Belle. I like it. I like it way easier on American tongues. And it's got to be kind of fun to be able to change your name. You know, pick something out when you get older. If I had it across the pond in the other direction to start a new life, I wonder what my Norwegian name would be. What do you, what do you meet, Saks? Think of Huyngy-Bungy. All right, I could be Huyngy-Bungy. Or maybe I could be Tinkertooker-Flu Kasson-Husberg-A-Hinky. I

could be Tidley-Winks. I feel like those are some pretty dope-ass Norwegian names. Slalom, Tidley your mother, the Tinkertoo. Tinker do, tinker do tittle winks, stop by to drop off some loot to fish. I feel thank you, Mr. Karsana bird, a hink, a binky. And half of our Norwegian audience, that's it. Stop and we'll not be listening to time stock again. Bella showed up looking for some easy money. She had no interest in putting up with any twig based teasing in America.

Her sister, Nella Larsen, Nelly Larsen would later remark, My sister was insane on the subject of money. She would do anything to get it. Bella made it no secret. She thought of dollar signs when she thought of marriage. Nelly observed she never seemed to care for a man for his own self. Only for the money or luxury he was able to give her This was her murder motivation greed good old fashioned greed and

March of 1884 Bellapetra sin became Bella Sorenson when she found and married an origin man named mods did live a did live Anton Sorenson they were married to the evangelical Lutheran Bethania church on Grand Avenue and Carpenter Street in Chicago. And yes, his name was Mads. Not an uncommon Scandinavian today, actually. I was looking him up. I found some young Danish soccer player, football player, by the same name actually of Mads Sorensen. And yet, Hoingy Boingy for some reason, not a popular Scandinavian name. Huh.

The only existing photograph of the lucky Mad Sorenson shows a powerfully built bull-necked fella with strong Nordic features, handle our mustache and a high-balling dome. Sornsson was 29, five years older than Bella, and was one of the 800 employees of the Mandel Brothers department store on state Madison streets, where he worked as a night watchman. How different were those days? When one department store can employ 800 people. Matt wasn't pulling in the kind of money Bella was hoping for, but he was pulling in, I can afford to heat our home

with regular ass wood money. So he was an acceptable starter husband. Years later, Bella would save her first husband, the father of her children, and by all accounts, a kind and loving man, as she stayed with him only because he provided her a nice house. And Bella and Mads started trying to have children right away, better love kids, most of the time. Later she tended to kill them. So maybe she didn't love them exactly like you're supposed to. She had a great love for children her sister Nelly would recall,

almost every Norwegian Sunday school child in Chicago knew her for her kindness. She appeared especially touched by the plight of orphaned and abandoned children. Attending the children's picnics at Humboldt Park, she would get out on the platform and offer to take care of children who needed a home. And it's just speculation if she did love children or if even back then she was just thinking about dollar signs. I think personally initially she did love kids and then she realized she could make money off of them by killing them and her greed won out over her early fondness of kids. Her eagerness to raise a child would lead to a bitter break with her sister, Nelly. This is crazy

to me. Unable to conceive during the early years of her marriage with Mads, Bella directed much of her maternal feelings towards her four-year-old niece Olga, the youngest of Nellie's five children. Nellie later explained, Olga was an awfully cute little girl, and my sister demanded to have her to rear. Though Olga was permitted to stay with her aunt Bella, on one occasion for six weeks, Nellie understandably refused to let Mrs. Sorenson adopt my little daughter. From that day, my sister would hardly speak to me. How fucking weird is that? You want to take your sister's kid for your own, and my sister's like, From that day, my sister would hardly speak to me.

How fucking weird is that? You wanna take your sister's kid for your own and my sister's like, no, it's my kid. You're like, well, I won't be talking to you anymore then. If you won't let me have in your baby. Mellow might not have been murderous yet in the 1880s, but she was for sure a little cray cray. In 1891, Bella Sorenson finally gets a kid of her own.

She took in an infant girl named Jenny, living close to the Sorenson's at the time, with the Olsons, a married couple who become close friends with Bella and Mads. As Anton Olsson, the child's father would later explain. When Jenny was eight months old, her mother was dying. Mrs. Sorenson begged the dying woman to bequeathed the child to her. My wife put the baby in Bella's arms and called in her to swear that she would guard the little one as her own, rear and care for her. Bella swore that she would regard the pledges sacred. My wife died soon afterward. After Bella took the child, I saw her frequently. She brought Jenny to me often and kept her well dressed. The child

was happy. Years later, after he'd remarried, Olsen tried to regain custody of his daughter and Bella fought him in court in one, which would turn out later to be a real bummer for Jenny. Though Mads never brought home more than $15 a week in wages, equivalent to roughly $4.50 today, he and Bella somehow managed to acquire enough money in 1894 to purchase a small candy store, a grand avenue and Edward Street. And Bella would learn two things from her candy store venture. One, making money selling candy was hard and two, collecting money via insurance fraud was

easy. Occupying the street level floor of a two story wood frame building, the store as a newspaper photograph makes clear sold tobacco, cigars, newspapers, magazines, stationery, some grocery staples, and a lot of popular candies of the day. Despite his location in a busy commercial district, the shop failed to prosper in less than a year after she and Mads bought the place a fire broke out. And Bella probably started it. Bella would be around an alarming number of fires in her life. She was either the unluckiest person in the world when it came to fire or she said a shit

ton of fires. At the time of this fire, no one was present except Bella and her foster daughter Jenny, then a three year old toddler. The first known of the fire reported that Chicago Tribune was when Mrs. Sorenson with her child came running out onto the sidewalk crying fire at the top of her voice. By the time the blaze was extinguished, the interior of the store had been completely destroyed. What? No!

Dang it! Bella was so relieved, I mean outraged. Though Bella claimed that a small carousine lamp had exploded, the insurance investigators sifting through the debris could find no such lamp. Despite suspicions of Arson, the insurance company ultimately paid up. After getting some insurance money, the sorensen sold the store, excuse me, to the brother of its original owner, and then Bella and Mads moved out to the blue collar fringe of the well-to-do suburb of Austin, where they purchased a three-story bay windowed house on Alma Street. Nice!

The Jefferson's best sitcom theme song of all time has to at least be in the conversation. Anyway, Bella moves on up when she learns there's good money and torches up a place to even shirt it. She'd soon learn there was even better money and killing people when you were the beneficiary to their insurance policy. Between 1896, 1898, the Sauron's became the parents of four more children. Carolyn, Mertle, Axel, and Lucy. Axel, such a good Scandinavian name, Ida. Great uncle.

Axel, Axel, Berterman. Whether these babies were born and wrapped succession to Bella, then in the late 30s, or as seems more probable, orphaned or unwanted infants that she took in, perhaps according to some accounts for monetary consideration remains even today a matter of dispute. I think she, I don't think she had them herself. One fact is certain, soon after their birth, two of them died. Carolyn a five-month-old, actually three months at a time when the U.S. infant mortality rate

was shockingly high, approximately 100 deaths per 1,000 live births. No one saw this as suspicious. Their deaths could have very well been natural deaths. But when Bell Gunnace is your mom, your odds of dying in natural deaths go down considerably. We learned later that she for sure had no problem killing her kids. One of these initial babies died from acute inflammation of the bowels, another passed from hydrocephalus, commonly called water in the brain, insurance policies paid out in the thousands

for both of these kids deaths. On the evening of Friday, October 1st, 1897, Matt, who had found work with Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, was bringing home wages of $12 a week, and then he just fell into what seemed to be a golden opportunity. That night, the sourceans were visited at home by a gentleman named Angus Ralston, who presented himself as the agent and chief engineer for an enterprise known as the Yukon Mining and Trading Company. Ralston explained that Yukon Mining was a corporation of great financial resources that had been incorporated with capital stock of $300,500,000. They owned mines in New Mexico and had great and extensive interests in Alaska and the Klondike

regions. The company was presently hiring miners willing to endure the rigors of a year-long stretch and the Alaskan wilderness for the chance to strike it rich. At Bella's urging, Mads quickly signed on entering into a formal agreement with the company that was signed sealed and witnessed on October 27th. According to the deal's terms, Mads agreed to go to Alaska in the employee of the company and prospect for gold. Locate same and do any other kind of work

to the manager and charge of the expedition required done for one year, beginning April 1st, 1898. And I like that they put April 1st in there just because of the April Fool's Day. As you'll find out why I like that here in a second. In return, he would not only be paid the same wages as other men in the camps where the mines are located, but also receive one fourth interest on all mines located by him, along

with 2800 shares of stock in the corporation. Since the source and family would be without their breadwinner for a full year, the company also agreed to pay Bella, his wife $35 each month while he is in their employee and to charge same to his account for salary. Bella who asked her sister observed cared little for Mads as the person happy to send him off for a year to prospect for gold. Blinded by the promise of dazzling wealth, she and Mads also agreed to invest a considerable sum of their own money to cover his supplies for one year. On the same day

that Matt entered into his agreement with the company, he and Bella signed over a joint promissory note for $700 equivalent over $20,000 today, putting up their deed to the almost read property as collateral security to get this deal. This is sound too good to be true. Yeah, sure does because it was. All rastin was the late 19th century equivalent of a Nigerian email scammer. Dude ran his scam door to door. Old school style. No email, no letter in the mail. Nope. He's gonna come to your house, sit in your living room, looking in the eye while he ruined your family's financial future.

Take some of your money and exchange for wild riches. I have no use for scammers, but I do love that he's scammed, Bill Gunnace. And I love that he put April 1st in there. April fool's motherfuckers. Ha, I'm keeping your money. What happened next is detailed in a lawsuit, Bella and Madd subsequently launched against the Yukon Mining and Trading Company. In compliance with said contract, reads the documents, Madd's made all preparations at great

sacrifice and expense to himself to go to Alaska, presented himself to said corporation on or about the first day of April, 1898, and informed the officers of said corporation that he was then ready to fulfill his contract and would hold himself and readiness to go to Alaska. And then two months passed with no word from any representative from the company. Then he and Bella, suspicions around, contacted a lawyer who demanded the right to examine the books of said corporation and that investigation confirmed the source and source fears far from booming gold mine operation. It purported to be the you con mining and trading company had absolutely zero financial

resources as a big old scam. An investigation found that the corporation had not and has not had any interest of any value in any minds in New Mexico, Alaska or anywhere else. Bella and Mads have been taken. However, they would win some of their money back in a lawsuit. And Bella got an unexpected criminal lesson out of the whole deal. And when it came to crime, she was a great student. She'd make a lot of money later off this lesson.

She learned that, you know, you just get somebody to give you a decent chunk of their change and hope that you will give them a huge chunk of change later. Attends to play on people's grids like a plate on hers. And then you just don't give them that. Keep the decent chunk knowing that if you can get enough other people to give you more decent chunks, pretty soon you have a huge chunk to keep for yourself. Bella would take the scam a lot further than Angus or Angus. Hard for someone to sue you and get some of their money back if they're dead and gone.

On the evening of Tuesday, April 10th, 1900, Bella and all likelihood ran another insurance scam. She wouldn't roll out her new murder scam for a few years yet. On the 10th of fire, another fire reportedly caused by defective heating, defective heating apparatus broke out in the store, in the street, almost straight home. They'll fire fighters and arrive in time to save the building. Bella and Matt suffered the loss of roughly $650 worth of household goods. Fortunately, as the Chicago Tribune reported, all the property destroyed was insured.

How convenient. And the couple received another hefty insurance settlement. In insured money. Go over it all up. Leave and live down right. On June 13th, 1900, Gunnison and her family were counted on the United States census in Chicago. The census recorded her as the mother of four children of whom only two were living, Mertle, Three and Lucy, one, and adopted 10 year old girl, identified possibly as Morgan

County, but apparently later known as Jenny Olson was counted, so Jenny counted in the household as well. At the time of the April fire, Mads belonged to a mutual benefits association that provided him with a $2,000 life insurance policy set to expire on Monday, July 30th, 1900. He had decided to let that policy lapse and take out a new policy for $3,000 that would become operative the same day. I'm guessing Bella was the one who pushed for both policies. I'm guessing Paul's twig daughter pushed for all kinds of insurance.

Those Norwegian kids should have called her Kinlin. She was obviously a fire starter. That very Monday afternoon, July 30, as Dr. J. C. Miller, a young physician who had once boarded with the sorensen, received an urgent summons from Bella. Hurring to the Alma Street address, he found Mads fully clothed, lined dead, atop his bed.

And he came to the conclusion that Mads had been poisoned with Stryk9. Weird. So weird that on the one day that both life insurance policies were active, literally the only day you could collect on both policies, Mads, who was a totally healthy 46 year old, you know, guy the day before, suddenly, totally dead. And then he seemed to have been poisoned. I think

this is her first murder. She's already figured out how to run some arson insurance scams. And, you know, Bella's already been the beneficiary of some life insurance scams with the deaths of two of her children. She knows how to collect on insurance camps. I think she was money-hungry, and when you became an obstacle to her getting more money, maybe Matt didn't want to do some deals she wanted to do or push for a better job that she wanted him to push for, when you become an obstacle to more wealth, you died. And as time goes on, she just gets more and more bloodthirsty

and greedy. I'm sure it got easier and easier for her to kill, but she almost never got a chance to become a serial killer. She came very close to getting caught for this first known murder. I think it's no murder. After Dr. Miller's initial poisoning conclusion, another doctor, Charles E. Jones, the source and family physician, arrives and says he's been treating Mads for an enlarged heart. He concludes the death was caused by heart failure.

Therefore, you know, there's no point in doing an autopsy. Now, the death isn't suspicious. Questioning Bella, the doctor's learned that her husband, who was suffering from a bad cold, had come home from work that morning complaining of a fearful headache. Bella gave him a dose of quinine powder. Then she went down to the kitchen to prepare dinner for the kids. When she came back upstairs a short while later to check on her husband, she found him dead. Thinking as he later explained that the, or as she later explained that the drug has had made a mistake and given her more feed instead of, I think it's quenine.

I forgot to look that one up. Dr. Miller asked to see the paper in which the powder had been wrapped and Belly replied that she had thrown that powder away. How convenient. Just throw away the powder. It probably killed her husband with nothing but the symptoms as Belly described in the two doctors conclude that Mars died of cerebral hemorrhage and Bella collected on both life insurance policies. She applied for the insurance money the day after her husband's funeral, Soroson's

relatives found the timing all too coincidental. They thought gunnest poison mats. Surviving records suggest that an inquest was ordered by the family unclear, however, as to whether or not investigation actually occurred. You know, they wanted his body to be exhumed and checked for arsenic. Had source and died a day earlier, one newspaper later explained his wife would have been able to collect only on the first policy for two grand. Or if a day later, only on the second for three thousand, dying as he did, she collected on both the old and new policies, a total of five grand, which works out to be about about 150 grand in today's money.

And in other accounts, they say she walked away with 85 hundred between the two, which is over $200,000 today, not a bad chunk of change. Good rid of the husband. I'll be to find the guy who make more money. On the morning of Thursday, August 2nd, 1900, Mads did live Antonsaurus and laid to rest beside his two infant children at the forest home cemetery. Quick word on Stric9. Some nice pronounce as StricNine, but I hate the way that sounds. That seems to be more often pronounced Stric9. Stric9 is the Poison Norman Bates killed his mother with

in the classic Hitchcock horror film Psycho. Stric Nine is an alkaloid, makes it an evil cousin of drugs like caffeine, nicotine, cocaine. All of these are nitrogen rich, slightly basic compounds that plants pump into, whichever parts of themselves they don't want to be eaten by bugs and critters.

The poison comes from the Stric Nine tree, aka the venom orange tree, a deciduous tree native to India and southeast Asia, and the poisonous derived from seeds in the tree's little orange color apple-sized fruit. Alcaloids are extracted from ground up Stric 9 seeds aka Stric 9 nuts are often called by boiling them with alcohol and a seed of acid. Lactose is then added and the the result is knowing as strict nine extract. And well, you get the idea. The poison comes from the seeds,

it can be converted into liquid form, also made into a powder. And it was often sold in Bell's day to be used as rat poison. And you can just pick it up at a variety of stores. You can mix it into a drink or some food and no one will be the wiser until it was too late. And if someone did poison you with strict nine, you'd die in hours.

You'd suddenly be afflicted with extreme soreness, stiffness in your muscles, especially those around the neck, jaw, and abdomen. And then you'd likely be afflicted with intense muscle spasms and convulsions. Strict nine acts on the nerves that control muscle contraction, mainly those in the spinal cord. And too much strict nine can affect the muscles used for breathing, which you know, not good. Those are pretty important muscles. They're almost as important as having cooler conbi-sips. And then death by stric-9 generally comes from brain damage, cardiac arrest, or respiratory failure.

And God knows how many people died from stric-9 poisoned in the days before modern emergency rooms, and before modern forensics. Before we jump back into Bell's life, time for a quick sponsor. Today's time, so I brought to you once again by Albert Fish Things, the classics. We just uncovered, this is very, very cool. We just uncovered a lost recording of Albert Fish and Bell Gunnace. After she disappeared, after this later escape she'll do, she apparently met up with fish and they recorded some duets from the 1920s.

Really cool stuff. They sing really well together. Check out how they tweaked Irving Berlin's Blue Skies. Blue Skies smiling at me. Nothing but blue skies. Now come on N.P. Trump on my monkey, stomper so long, Sneaking somewhere up in,

As right of its wrong and then bell would jump in, Never seen the sun shining so bright, And never saw someone I would in poison when the money wasn't bright, and blue skies in, Smiling at me, sun, a fish and ingoting, gee, lit me taking an insurance policy out to new life and in a song, you're stinking monkey until you're dead and gone

and it's real rare and experimental old time you shit you guys. 10 different songs and if you order their album today, Belle Beats fish until he comes and goes away for good. You'll also get a free six pack of Ed Camper's pet sickles mother and a free patent pending limp thrust massage from none other than Andre Cicatillo. Well, that's a big deal. I'm a sus now. It's a natural place for me to put the rattle moves to good use. I use a sauce shame call because massage

tool. It's perfect for working out the king in the hard to reach place. And I'm back. Oh man, what a great sponsor though. Refocus it on Bella now. Just needed to release a little weird pressure out of my thought bucket. Following the death of her husband, Bella paid a visit to a relative on a farm in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, home a friend, comedian fellow podcast or Chad Daniels, the idea of resettling on a farm set of her own seemed to have taken hold of her. I bet it did. The girl raised as the poor daughter of a poor worker on someone else's farm now wants

to own the farm herself. Back in Chicago, according to some researchers, Bella placed a classified ad in the Tribune, seeking a suitable property. The ad caught the eye of Peter Gunness, the then current owner of an Indiana farm locally known as the Maddie Altic Place, and he contacted Bella. Bella soon to be home, a place that would come to be known as the Murder Farm has an interesting backstory. In 1846, a man named John Walker built the home for his daughter, Harriet Holcomb. The Holcomb clan were supporters of the Confederacy while the rest of the port were for the union nearly two decades past before the unpopular clan

moved to New York, leaving the farm to change hands a dozen times until 1892 when a brothel keeper moved in. Maddie Alltick, a matem from Chicago, boss the property and transformed the farm into a popular, fully staffed, whorehouse. Many of her regular customers were from Chicago, made trips to the port and their money helped to add a, a jetty, a boat house, and a large carriage house to the property. whorehouse to murder house. Not many Midwest farms have that kind of history. After all to ex-death, the house changed hands four more times until

Peter Gunn has got a hold of it. And, and agreement was struck in November 1901 after selling her Alma Street property, Bella Sorenson and her three kids, Jenny, Mertle and Lucy moved to LaPort, Indiana. The people of her new community would know her by a slightly different name. Those she continued to sign herself as Bella and private correspondence. She adopted the planer, more typically American bell, in her dealings with her neighbors. And then Bella's last name would change to Gunn's, a few months later as well. She adopted the planer more typically American bell in her dealings with her neighbors and then Bell's last name would change to Gunness a few months later as well. Finally, we've arrived at Bell Gunness, the name of Infamy.

So who was Peter Gunness? Bell actually met Peter Gunness while she was still married to Mads. The couple had given Gunness board in their home for a brief time while Peter worked in the stockyards, surviving photos of Peter confirmed one writer's description of the former border as a fine looking blonde Viking of a man with clear blue eyes and appointed yellow beard and mustache. Bording people in your home in the days before hotels were everywhere, the OG Airbnb. Funny how let's come back around. You have an extra room in your house? Rent it out. Rent it out in the days before criminal and sex offender registries and easy online background checks. That's so crazy to me. Especially if you had kids like basically everyone did back then. It's just

a more trusting time. More trusts. I made crime more fun back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well. Bell made a lot of money off people's misplaced trust. Peter was a fellow Norwegian and immigrant from Oslo who arrived in Minneapolis in 1885. He and his brother Gust moved to Chicago in 1893 just in time for the city's hosting of the World's Fair. It was around that time he rented a room from the source and that was when the H.H. Holmes murder castle was going by the way. After a brief visit back to Norway, Peter Gunnus returned to Minneapolis, where in June 1895, he married a young woman named Jenny, Sophia Simpson.

They lived in a house on Hennepin Street while Peter worked as an order man for a grocery house. Their first child, a child they named Swan Hild, was born in 1897. Four years later, Jenny Gunnus died while giving birth to their second child, another girl, and all two common occurrence back then. Still one more thing that would play into Bell's criminal hands. People died of natural causes all the time. A lot of deaths in the family didn't arouse suspicion like it would now.

Excuse me. During her visit to her cousin in Minnesota following Matt's death, the widow Sorenson made it her business to take a trip to Minneapolis, become reacquainted with the handsome and suddenly available former border of hers. The years had not been kind to Bell, according to those interviewed about her later. Hardly a beauty in many eyes to begin with. She had apparently aged in two, a course and managed figure. It's one quote, described in the particularly harsh words of one of her contemporaries as this description kills me. Described as a quote, fat, heavy featured woman with a big head covered with a mop of mud-colored

hair, small eyes, huge hands and arms, and a gross body is my favorite detail, supported by feet rotesquely small. Sweet Jesus! Could have just called her a swamp donkey, but on your way, a heavy featured meat sack with huge hands and arms and a gross body supported by freakish, tiny little baby feet. This unnamed contemporary clearly just fucking hated her. Yes, she might not have been winning any beauty pageant ribbons. She didn't look like that description from the pictures I've seen,

because that description made me dig deeper on some bell images. And again, I found an image when she was younger, I think she was actually super hot. And then the image when she's older, yeah, you know, she gets a little thicker, like most people do is they get older, but she didn't look like that in the pictures I've seen.

Just some old school body shaming. I don't know, maybe the pics I found were far away just the most flattering ones of taking of Bell. Maybe in reality, she was a huge handed, tiny-footed B.D.I.D. Mud mop, bridge stroll. Regular woman or mishaping monster. She didn't seem to have any trouble attracting men,

even one is handsome as Peter Gunness. In 1901, Gunness purchased a house on a clung road. It has been reported that both the boat and carriage houses burned to the ground shortly after Bell required the property and insured it. Now the weird fire quincidence. On April 1st, 1902, I love again that this was April 1st, Bell and Peter were married in the first Baptist church of La Port. Bell was now officially a farmowner and she was about to pull a nasty April fools trick on on old, uh, old Peter.

And she's got even more money now. We're moving on now. That's a farm. How? Thanks, keep getting better. Five days after the nuptials, Peter's seventh month old daughter dies, maybe natural death, maybe poison, every death around Bella's suspicious, a demon of the lungs given as the official cause of death, her body shipped to Chicago, and turd in the forest home cemetery beside the remains of two

other infants who died in Bella's care. She got a little more insurance money and one less baby to take care of. On December 16th, 1902, around 3 a.m. Peter himself met with a tragic accident. The murder of Peter Gunnus, easily some of Bell's sloppiest work. Incredible that she was able to get away with his shit. Swan Nicholson and his family, the Gunnus' nearest neighbors, startled awake by the sharp banging on their front door as though someone were striking it with an iron rod. Herring downstairs in their bed clothes, they find Bell's foster daughter Jenny standing on the porch, a stove poker clutch in her hand.

Mama wants you to come up. Says the 12 year old. Papa's burned himself when they arrive at the gunners farmhouse. A few minutes later, swan and his young son Albert find Bell seated in the kitchen. So overwrought that she could barely speak coherently. Her husband dressed in his long white night shirt, sprawled face down in the parlor, lying on his nose and blood on the floor as Nicholson later testified. Squatting by the body, Nicholson took hold of his arms to feel the pulse and tried to talk to him,

but he would give me no answer. Albert ran all the way into town, roused local doctor, Bowel. Bowel could tell it once the gun has been dead for quite some time. The body was already growing rigid. The back of his head, born ugly wound, thickly caked with blood, his nose was broken, bent to one side, medically speaking, his head and face were super fucked up. Bull's immediate impression was that Peter had been murdered. Bell, whose condition boarded on hysteria, was led back into the kitchen, seated in a chair. Bull did his best to find out what happened. Though the story he managed to extract from Bell raised more questions than an answer. From what he could gather, her husband had gone into the kitchen to get his shoes,

which he kept into the stove to stay warm. As he stooped over, bent over to retrieve the shoes, put them on a meat grinder, tumbled off a shelf above his head, struck him in the back of his skull, and also overturned a bowl of hot brine, the skull that is neck. Uh-huh. Sure that happened. And then, and then this, and then this killed him. This, this crazy accident.

And then despite, you know, getting like, mashing the face and breaking his nose, ended up with a fractured skull, uh, holding the back of his head. He somehow was sure that he's all right and just goes to lay down to rest. And a few hours, you know, hours later, she finds him dead on the parlor floor because that, you know, because that meat grinder just kind of tumbled off and smashed his head. She's like, that's like finding somebody who has been obviously raped and sodomized and murdered via being stabbed and shot and then, and then having the person who's accused of murdering rape and them say, like, oh, hold on, hold on.

Let me explain. Let me explain. It was the dandruff thing. He walked into the kitchen, tripped over my leg. He kind of twirled around and he wouldn't you believe it. He fell right on top of my heart, Dick. I was laying on the kitchen floor on my back jerking off like that as I am often prone to do. And when you know my erect penis, just went right into Peter's butthole, startled him. And he kind of he kind of popped back up and he grabbed

the counter to pull himself up. And there was a whole bunch of knives on the counter that were drying there after I watched him earlier in the day. And that's that's what my fingerprints are all over him. Anywho peer end up flipping the knives kind of up into the air and this kind of twirl around and then they just all came down like a bunch of lawn darts and they just stabbed him in several places in his torso and neck and that. And that's when he fell back down because he got instead, and he,

because third time, he fell right back on my, on my heart dick, and then he kept trying to get up off of me. I was like, God, I'm going to get up, trying to get, and then he would slip and fall back in his up and back, and up and back. And that's how I ended up accidentally orgasming into his colon, which is how my DNA got in there. Still trying to get up,

Peter reached for the table. He'd laid a loaded rifle there earlier in the morning thinking he might go hunting later. Damned if that rifle didn't just kind of flip up into the air and then he tried to catch it accidentally pulls a trigger. She's himself in the chest. The recoil, if I remember correctly, launched the rifle back up into the air, hits the ceiling and it discharged and actually shoots him again this time in the face. And then it falls back and then I grab it, you know, so it doesn't hit me. And I damn it if I didn't also grab it by the trigger.

And that's how he got shot in the head a second time. So yeah, you really think it looks kind of like a rape and stabbing shot in a murdery way. Really just a just an interesting series of accidents and scene. Bell said, yeah, that all this happened. Dr. Powell found this story highly suspect because it's fucking ludicrous. On the out of the end of December 16th, Dr. Powell assisted by another local physician, Dr. Martin conducts a post-mortem examination

of Peter Gunn's body. As detailed in his official report, there's no burns, no evidence of scowls or burns on the entire body. She just made up that detail, nothing burned him. Bale wrote that Gownes' nose was lacerated and broken, showing evidence of severe blows or the result of falling upon a blunt article such as the edge of a board, the most significant wound was elaceration through the scalp and external layer of skull about an inch long,

situated just above and to the left of the of the part of his head. It's I should have looked out. Occupital, Occupital Pruduberance. Upon removing the pericranium, you know, that one, there showed a fracture and depression of the interplay to the skull at a point corresponding to the external laceration. There was also marked intercranial hemorrhage. Bull concluded that deaths would do to shock and pressure caused by fracture and said hemorrhage.

Yeah, he was bashed in the fucking head, clearly. And there's no way he talked to Bell after that, Baxter. There's no way that somebody would also let somebody go to go to sleep after that severe of a head wound. He didn't get like a little bump on his head. He has fucking head crushed in and part of it. And then she says, like, yeah, he's got up and said he had a headache. Yeah, went to bed. I'm gonna go lay down.

Yeah, no, he, he, he, Bell bashed him in the head and murdered him. Everybody knew it, but she pulled an OJ, got away with it. An inquest was held on Thursday, December 18, 1902. The gunnest farmhouse in the room where Peter died. Bell, the primary witness, underwent a length unit times heated interrogation by Dr. Bull, while his clerk transcribed the exchange, Jenny Gunnace, six months shy of her 13th birthday testified next. Her account of what happened on the night of her stepfather's death matched Bells precisely

to precisely, suspecting the girl was repeating what her mother had told her to say. Bull asked if the two of them had talked about how he got hurt. She shook her head vigorously, no, insisting we haven't talked at all. But then she admitted that, you know, when this accident occurred, she was asleep. So how could she have known anything? She was obviously told what to say. By the time Bull conducted his inquest, the community was swimming with rumors of regarding foul play, one local newspaper would report. Residents scoffed Bell's explanation for her husband's death, as they should have. Peter Gunnus was killed with a meat grinder dropping on his head, sneered one farm wife, a very likely story.

Peter's funeral service took place in the parlor of the Gunnus farm house on Friday, December 19th. Doctor Bull issued his findings on the same day that Peter Gunnus was buried in Patent Cemetery, saying, after having examined the body and heard the evidence, we find that the disease came to his death by the accidental falling of the auger part of a sausage mill, falling from the heating shelf of a cook stove in his kitchen and striking him on the back of the head. The impact of said auger part of sausage mill causing fracture of skull and intercranial hemorrhaging resulting in death.

And he must have been like writing that like fucking that fucking piece of shit. Because no one witnessed Peter's murder. And people at the time were very reluctant to hang a woman for her husband's murder. If the woman not only wouldn't confess, but also made up a story about an accident, right there, there was, it was just kind of a, you know, it's her word, a bell benefited from the sexism of the day. I suspect if, if Bell had, had died the way Peter did. And then Peter told the story, Bell told he would have been charged convicted and hanged.

died the way Peter did. And then Peter told the story, Bell told he would have been charged convicted and hanged. Her husband's death netted gunness another 3000 or 4000 depending on the source equal to at least 120 grand in today's dollars. He's working. Got more money from another murder. A moving on up. Local people refused to believe the death was accidental. In the district corner reviewed the case and unequivocally announced that Peter had been

murdered. He convened a coroner's jury to look into the matter. Meanwhile, Jenny Olson, then 14, supposedly overheard confessing to a classmate. My mama killed my papa. She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died. Don't tell a soul. Jenny was brought before the coroner's jury, but denied having made that remark. Guesting she was more than a little scared about what her mom might do to her if she testified. Gunness meanwhile, somehow eventually convinced the coroner that she was just innocent enough

to avoid a trial. Maybe she bribed him. I mean, she had the money. Just a few months after Peter's death, Bell gave birth to a child she'd had with Peter, a boy she named Philip, maybe she murdered this baby's dad while the child lived inside her, seems a little extra evil, or did she even have the baby? There's no mention of her being pregnant during any of these inquiries. Mysterious circumstances attended Little Philip's arrival in May of 1903. People don't remember her being pregnant. Then the midwife who came to assist

with the delivery of the supposedly pregnant bell finds the baby was already born, bathed, and dressed by the time she gets there. Later that morning after being notified by young Jenny Gunnest that her mother had gotten a little baby boy, a neighbor named Catherine Lapham went over to lend a hand. And to her amazement, Bell was just out of the sister and out back washing clothes. Mrs. Lampson exclaimed, you shouldn't be up. Ah, said Belle in the old country. They never go to bed after they have a baby. Did Belle have this baby?

Or did she steal it from another woman? And if so, what happened to that woman? Wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume some serious foul play went on. Now back to the death of Peter Gunness. Among those least persuaded by the official verdict on Peter's death was his brother Gust. He suspected foul play was involved, not only in his brother's case, but in the sudden

death of seventh, seven month old Jenny Gunnace, who died, you know, less than a week after Peter's marriage to Bill. Gust was also concerned about the well being of his surviving niece, five year old Swan Hild, who remained in her stepmother's care, and he should be. He knew that prior to marriage, Peter had taken out a $2,500 life insurance policy naming Swan Hild as the beneficiary. In the early months of 1903, the exact date is uncertain. Likely before Philip was brought into the home, Gus traveled to LaPort from his home in Minneapolis. He was reassured to find that though occasionally lonely for her family members back in Minneapolis,

the young Swan Hild appeared to be doing well, less satisfied when he inquired about the $2,500 insurance money that the child was owed. Bell explained to Gus that before his brothers, unfortunate demise, Peter had turned the insurance policy over to a mining company for the purchase of stock. And as a stock ever mounted to anything, Swanhill would be a rich girl. She'd be sure to get that stock. Yeah, bullshit. When Gus asked to see the stocks certificates, Bill couldn't find them, probably because it didn't exist. Instead, she made him a proposition that he stay with her and manage the farm.

I feel like the real deal here is stick around long enough for me to be able to murder you, so you'll stop asking all these stupid fucking questions. Gus declined, saying later, I didn't like her eyes. Gus stayed at the farm for several days with a growing sense of unease. I'm guessing he was sleeping with one eye open. Gus knew he was blocking his bedroom door with some shit so she couldn't sneak in at night, making sure to only eat the food she ate.

And then one morning less than a week after his arrival, Bell, Awakes, to find that Gus has gone and that he's taken Swan Howard with him back to Wisconsin. Swan Howard would be the only child to survive living with Bell Awakes to find that gust has gone and that he's taken Swanhaude with him back to Wisconsin. Swanhaude would be the only child to survive living with Belle and only because somebody else kidnapped him. Yikes. When Peter with Peter gone, Belle assumed the farm work that was normally performed by

a man at the time. She did her own planting and harvesting, pitch-drone, hey, milk-drone cows. Wearing a seal skin cap, a man's leather coat, and a pair of her husband's old shoes, she would join the men at farm auctions in the area, tramping around in the mud, looking at a farm machinery while the rest of the women stayed up near the stove. That is where a lot of the legends of her strength began. At these livestock sales, she supposedly would buy a 200 pound hog, then lift it up and

toss it into her wagon as if it were just a sack of laundry. This feels like a tall tale to me. I'm not a small guy. Not sure how much I weigh right now, maybe down somewhere around two or five, two, ten. I used to lift weights a lot more and at my strongest, when I was about 230, I could bench over 300 pounds, squat over 400 deadlift around 450. And it would have been tough for me then as the as I've ever been in my life to toss a 200 pound hog into a wagon. That's a lot of weight packed into an unruly sized animal, right? There are a lot of stories like this floating around about Bell while I feel like they had to have been exaggerated. She was, you know, apparently very strong, which makes her that much scarier to me. When the time came to butcher these animals,

Bell handled the business herself. She would shoot them, bleed them, scald them, gut them, save in the head for head cheese. With all the deaths surrounding Bell Gunnace, their friendly relations, Bell enjoyed with her neighbors when she first came to the port were gone. No one was a friend of hers, neighbor, Louisa Deslan's daughter, Dora, would later recall.

You didn't want to have nothing to do with her, all the neighbors, not just us. Bell's break with the Deslanes was provoked by a conflict over some stray cows. Bell's two heifer calves kept wandering into the Deslanes property to graze in their fields and furiorated by this violation of small town codes. Door is father Warren Bell that unless she kept her cattle fenced in, he would demand payment for the use of his pasture. Next time he found the calves on his property, he made good on his threat, luck in the cows and his barn, refusing to return them until Bell paid him a dollar. And then shortly after paying that dollar, she retaliated. Spotting some of Deslan's cows grazing along the road, she drove the

cows into her yard when William hurried over to retrieve them like this dude saw this happen, she demanded a dollar for their return. And he shouted, but you ran them in here off the road and Bill Cooley insisted that the callus were trespassing now and repeated her demand. Not clear if you paid it or how he got his callus back. What is clear is that the bell in general just had no fucks to give just for anyone. By the winter of 1904, Miguel, Bell began looking for a new man and not just to help out with the work around the farm. In February of 1904, a 30 Bell began looking for a new man and not just to help out with the work around the farm. In February of 1904, a 30 year old Norwegian immigrant named Olif Lindbo came upon a help wanted ad in the Norwegian language newspaper, Scandan Avin.

The ad advertised a laborer position on Bell's murder farm in La Port, Indiana. Wasn't described as a murder farm. Stolly Bell could be honest with her job offerings. I'd be great if she was. She put out some ad wanted handsome young man with money to work as farm labor and supply widow with young dick for a few weeks to few months before being murdered then buried on said farm must bring cash must have either no family or family who doesn't ask too many questions.

A amounts of sex negotiable bringing money and being murdered, not negotiable. Packing his worldly belongings, including his life savings of $600, Olaf headed for Indiana where he's promptly hired by Ole Miss Hell's Bells. Within a short time after his rival, neighbors began to notice that he and Bell seemed to enjoy an unusually close relationship. Apparently, even a local newspaper reported that it was generally accepted that he was her fiance. Olaf would write back

to his father in Norway just two months after coming to work for Mrs. Gennos Gunnis. In the letter, he told his father of the farm's exquisite location and mentioned he might be getting married soon. Oh, BDI tiny feet still got old frog face, gross body still pull that young dick. Not long after Olaf sent the letter to his father, one of Bell's neighbors, Chris Christopherson, received word from Bell that not the not the singers, the relation that I know of. She needed help because her hired hand Olaf had left in the middle of a major job. What? Olaf just randomly disappeared one night. That's so weird. Bell was in the field plow and corn when Christopherson arrived. When he asked about Olaf's disappearance, she explained that he had gone to St. Louis to see the world's fair and was going to buy

some land. When Olaf's father, after receiving no communication from his son for many months, wrote to ask about his whereabouts, Bell sent a letter back saying, from what she understood, he went west, took a homestead someplace. Uh-huh. Yeah, Olaf was dead and gone. During the second week of April, 1905, just months just months after Olaf and she got that money, right? No, keep it Olaf money. Hell yeah, just making a little more cash. During the second week of April 1905, just months after Olaf disappeared, and it's that damn nosy neighbor, Chris Christopheston,

at the gunnest place when a stranger arrives in town, introducing himself to Christopheston is Henry Girlholt. Girlholt, there we go. He explained that he'd come to work for Mrs. Gunnace. introduced himself to Christophsson, his Henry girl, girl, Holt, girl, Holt, there we go. He explained that he'd come to work for Mrs. Gunness. Everything about his new situation was to girl, Holt's liking. He was optimistic about the future of the farm. In letter to his mother, written a week after his arrival, he described the farm as one of the nicest places in the neighborhood

with a handsome 13 room brick house surrounded by a grove of nice green trees. He also wrote, I'm being treated almost the same as one of the family. Chris Christopherson saw a girl halt repeatedly over the following weeks, oftentimes with Bell, and then one day in August of 1905 during harvest time, Bell appears at the Christopherson home again, asked if he could help uh if uh they could help her with her oats girl hold she explained i just suddenly quit jesus lady don't you have any other neighbors you can ask to help after you obviously murder

the employee late in the summer of nineteen oh five short after henry girl disappears a classified ad begins appearing in various norwegian language newspapers throughout the midwest back when that was incredibly uh... actually a thing uh... appeared in the Minneapolis Tendendi, the Dakota Poston, and Iowa, the Skundan even translated into English it red wanted. A woman who owns a beautifully located and valuable farm in first class condition

wants a good and reliable man as a partner and same. Some little cash is required and will be furnished first class security. So basically she's asking guys to invest in her farm, you know, as if they're buying stock in her farm, for, you know, with a good chance that, you know, they'll become partner, i.e. they'll get married and own half the farm. Basically, Bell was prowling the Tinder of her day. Many of dudes swiped right and were led to their deaths. The lady who was once scammed by that fake gold mine and play had come up with a killer, scam for own. No one knows how many replies this ad received, but Bell's postman DJ Hunter later reported that she typically received from one to four letters every morning, sometimes as many as eight or 10 a day.

Fuck business boom and how many dude did she? Among the first to respond was a middle-aged Norwegian immigrant man named George Barry, who left his home in Tuscala, Illinois, with $1,500 in cash, roughly $40,000 in today's money, after informing acquaintances that he was moving to the port for a job and possible marriage. George Barry. What kind of Norwegian name is that? He really, he really Americanized the shit out of that one. Wonder what was it? What his original name was? Probably something exotic and cool, you know, Thor flingle flueble. Maybe Mod swingy hoot and warble. Now he's all George Barry.

Howdy duty. My name's George Barry. Would you care for some supper? You can have some kiat baller perhaps. Do you like music? Let me grab my harbing finger, my hardinger feeler fiddle and play you some ditties the hardinger fiddle by the way used in traditional Scandinavian folk music. It's kind of an interesting sound If you want to torture somebody musically Not a bad choice to go with the hardeninger filler. Actually, it has kind of an air banjo feel to it, which brings me to our next sponsor, the A-hole Air Banjo Academy, not now offering air

hardening or lessons. The very first professional and totally legit music academy to do so. Now, here's a sample of just first comparison of how a quote unquote real Hardinger sounds. I mean, pretty beautiful, right? It's kind of pleasant. Now, here's another sample of another real Hardinger. Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Bengar, Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-t-tank! Tink-a-tank! Tink-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t I know you're fucking mind blown right now. You're like, that sounded exactly like this. Take it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it. It's the fucking, it's the same.

How did I do that? A whole air banjo academy, okay? Oh man, for the one time price of only $7,000 for a five to ten minute lesson, you too can become that proficient at the air hardinger. Hey, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, their face with an old piece of driftwood. They feel like practicing some witlin' on with a dull knife. Well, don't do that. Respect your face skin. This summer, you don't have to sacrifice quality for price. Join the 10 million other meat sacks who tried Harry's. claim your special offer by going to harries.com slash time suck. Harry's delivers high quality travel friendly shapes, supplies at the great low price of just $2 per blade to keep prices low. They cut out the middle man by purchasing a world class blade factory

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you dudes disappearing on an Indiana form. A subscriber to the decor of post. And by the way, I cannot get that melody out of my head. I've tortured myself. This is all I hear of this kind of music for the whole rest of the show. I deserve it. A subscriber to the decor of post in Christian Hilkevin of Dover, Wisconsin sells his farm for two grand in mid 1905 bids for farewell to his friends after arranging to have the paper forwarded to his new address

in the port and forming his boss is going to marry a rich widow. A meal tell, sweetest bachelor from Austin Kansas quits his job at the Howard Macy furniture company travels to the port with $2,000 in his pocket. They're never seen again. Oh, yes. December of 1905, John Mo, 40 year old bachelor from Elbow Lake, Minnesota, and a Scandinavian or Scandinavian subscriber visits his local bank to cash $1,000 in checks explaining to the teller that he was going to Leport, Indiana, and he would use the money.

And dudes just kept disappearing. I wonder if you ever had to kill them quicker than she wanted to just to stay on schedule for killing more dudes in the future. Another gunner's tutor, George Anderson from Tarkeio, Missouri, who liked Peter Gunnison, John Mell, immigrant from Norway. During a dinner with Anderson, Bell raised the issue of mortgage, of her mortgage. Anderson agreed that he would pay this off if they decided to wed. And then late that night, this is creepy.

Anderson awake to see Bell standing above him, just watching him sleep, holding the candle in her hand with a strange sinister expression on her face, looking not at all like a complete, fucking murderous psychopath. Without uttering a word, she runs from the room, and then Anderson himself flees from the house, as he should, soon taking a train to Missouri. What the hell was she doing?

Thinking about how fun it would be to poison him, you know, in a few weeks, thinking about maybe coming back into his room a little later to bash his skull in? She reminds me of Annie Wilkes, that Kathy Bates character in misery. The shooters keep coming, but none except for Anderson ever leave the gunnest farm.

By this time, she's begun ordering huge trunks to be delivered to her home. It's never made totally 100% clear exactly what she was doing with these trunks, but it seems as if she was storing the men's belongings in them after she killed them. I don't know, maybe in other ways she thought she could make money down the road, maybe sell their belongings, or maybe like a lot of serial killers, a way to keep trophies of her victims.

Now, maybe she wanted a whiff of a mill teller, Christian Hillcuvan, maybe sniffed her long johns later when she wanted to mentally and emotionally revisit their murders. A delivery driver named Clyde Sturgis delivered many such trunks to her from the port and later remarked how the heavy set woman would lift These enormous trunks like boxes of marshmallows tossing them onto her quote wide shoulders and carrying them into her house Maybe she really was freakishly strong. She's some sort of fucking highlander. That can be only one Just taking the power of each person that she kills getting stronger. She goes into middle age like some kind of fucking highlander. That can be only one. Just taking the power of each person that she kills, getting stronger, she goes into middle age, like some kind of pulp fiction monster.

Her strength description's cracked me the hell up. She was apparently the mountain from Game of Thrones. She kept the shutters of her house, closed day and night, like a person constantly killing their houseguests as apt to do. They would later be tells of farmers traveling past the gunnest dwelling at night, seeing her digging in the hog pin under the moonlight,

like a creepy ghoul. One of Bell's farm hands, a male graining, who was described as a square cut, common sense skull, and happy 19 year old, would later give testimony that, quote, Mrs. Gunness received men visitors all the time. A different man came nearly every week to stay at the house. She introduced them as cousins from Kansas,

South Dakota, Wisconsin, Chicago. Most of the men that came brought trunks with them. Mrs. Gunness kept the cousins with her all the time in the parlor and her bedroom. She was always careful to make the children stay away from her cousins, huh? Lots of kids that she kept the kids away from these guys, ladies, you know?

No use having these kids get attached to dead men walking. Emil Greening also said that he nor anyone on the farm had ever seen any of them leave. And strangely, every one of them left their trunk behind. Eventually, groaning recalled, there were about 15 are greenery called. There were eventually about 15 trunks. And one room was packed full of all kinds of men's clothes. Mrs. Gunn has said that the cousins had left their clothes and she wasn't certain they'd be back for them. More on greening in a bit. In summer of 1906 during a low between visits from her many male cousins, Bell hired a local

man, Astrix. I used to be an Astrix with the word man because this male creature was a Polish immigrant, named William Brogiski, hired him to dig a couple of holes in the muck of her fenced-off hog pin. Gravedicky, did you know that Gravedicky is still one of the top three, like one of the best jobs in Poland today. It's one of the most important professions a Polish mother can hope to have her son acquire the three are Gravedigger, birthday clown, and a courting player.

Those are some real Polish facts I just made up. You can check them yourself if you don't believe me. If you can never figure out how to hack inside my head and Google my noodle. Anywho, Bell was very exact about the dimensions of these holes that she had the Google Brogisky dick, six feet long, three feet wide, and four feet deep. They are to be rubbish pits, Bell explained. Very subtle. Just some rubbish holes dug to the exact specifications of human graves.

The following week, Beroski returns to the farm to do something else. While he's there, he notices that the holes are still empty. As he later testifies, he never saw what went into the bottom of these pits, nor when they were filled. While many a stranger met their death at the bell gunnest murder farm, the children under bell gunnest's care were in just as much danger. By the fall of 1906, Bell's longtime foster daughter Jenny, the girl that she had raised

and she was an infant. The girl that had blossomed into a very attractive 16-year-old and had several male admirers now, one of them being that young farmhand, a male greening. Well, she wants to leave home. Sometime in the winter of 1906, Jenny informs the meal that her mother had decided to send her to college in California and arranged for one of the professors to come to the port and escort her to the school. Shortly before Christmas, greeting her that the professor from California had arrived, nobody ever saw this guy.

Early the next morning, a meal was sent out on an errand when he returned. He asked us to see Jenny so we could say he could buy to her, but Jenny was gone. Mrs. Gones told me that Jenny had left the same morning, but no one saw her leave and no one about the place ever saw the professor. I think we all know what happened to Jenny. And her murder is the most fucked up of all of Bell Gunn's murder. So this is her daughter, a girl she took as an infant that she begged to take care of from the dying mother raised to the age of 16. And then she kills her why? Well, nothing was ever conclusively proven as far as motive. I have to think like from the dying mother raised to the age of 16 and then she kills her. Why?

Well, nothing was ever conclusively proven as far as motive. I have to think like all of Bell's murders, at least all the murders in America, it just came down to money to bell everyone had a price, even her children. I'm guessing if Jenny were to leave the house, Bell would no longer, you know, be her life insurance beneficiary. The clock was ticking on her ability to cash in on her own daughter's life. So she just killed her. Who cares that they spent all that time together?

Who cares about all the warm moments? Who cares that she raised her? What a narcissistic fucking sociopath. And if that's true, did she always know that someday she would kill Jenny? Did she raise her kind of like you're just raising a cow or a pig for slaughter? I mean, I can just picture the two of them sitting around the dinner table. Jenny dreaming of doing this or that one, she made it to California. Oh, mama, wouldn't it be great?

You can come and visit. You can see the Pacific. Oh, what do you think life's going to be like out there? And Bell is just smiling and nodding and knowing that she's going to be dead in a couple days. Or maybe Jenny knew Bell was a killer. And you know, she'd been worried about her adoptive mother killing her for quite some time. Maybe for years.

Now she hopes she's finally just going to escape the murder farm. Maybe Bell just thought she knew two months, much and had to get rid of her. I don't know. A lot of different scenario possibilities. They all share one common denominator. The bell gun us was a monster with Jenny gone. Life on the gun is farm lost whatever charm. Charm it had for a meal. And in June 1907, six months after her abrupt departure, he quits his job in his west. Dude was lucky to make it out of their life. One month later, he was replaced by Ray Lamfear. Ray would become a key player in the Bill Gunnest murder farm.

He'd become an evil henchman. Surprise, his name was an Igor. Surprise, he'd have a hunchback. Other than the hunchback, when you pull up an old mug shot of this dude, he absolutely has an evil henchman look dead. I'd kind of dumb, creepy vibe for sure. He also looks a lot more like me than I care for. I could absolutely play this guy.

Looks wise. If there was a movie, eventually a ray would help run the farm for Bell as well as move and bury dead bodies, accounts of how he came to be hired, by Bell are not totally clear. Several chroniclers claimed that having had her eyes on him for a while, she stopped him on the street one day, proposed that he come live on the farm and work for. Other researchers say that as a member of the local Carpenter's Union, he heard about some work that needed to be done at the Gunnest Farm from the fellow Carpenter, met up with Bell for an interview in a report.

She hired him on the spot. Whatever the case, it is certain that by July, 1907, 37-year-old Lamphere was living at the Bell Gunnest Farm and working, 37-year-old Lamphier was living at the Bell, Gunnison Farm, and working for 47-year-old Bell. Lamphier's room would be on the second floor of the farmhouse in a mill greening's former residents, and Bell supposedly stopped by frequently in her early days of working with Ray for some late-night sexual escapades. This would have been typical Bell behavior.

Other of her employees had become her bed mates. One of them, Peter Colson, who worked on her farm for two years, would later describe in great detail how she would come home to his room at night and make love to him with sweet words and caresses saying she purred like a cat. This Colson testified this. Testified she was soft and gentle in her ways. I never saw such a woman. Bill Gunness, such a complex, complicated meat sack.

I wonder how many dude she gently caressed and purred, purred before poisoning them for insurance money. I wonder if it made her horny to fuck a guy that she knew she was gonna kill pretty soon. I also have a hard time picturing her be seductive, mostly because I keep imagining her having like a cartoonish exaggerated Scandinavian accent, right? Which is not sexy to me. I know it's just probably only exists in my head.

Just, hongy boingy. You'd be looking so hot and so handsome this evening. Hongy boingy. Take your dinghy thingy, putting it, mama builds this, warm the holdszy. Pushin' and pulling, makin' the Mama Belz's, kit his purin' Is your way in a clean, hoingy-bongy, uft, uft, uft, uft, uft, hoingy-bongy, uft, the wet, the thingy thingy, uft, ya, ya, uft, ya, dingy, uft, da, um, ya, hoingy-bongy. That wasn't fun for you, It was pretty fun for me. Imagine you imagine seven seconds somebody with that, if they really, like when they got close to orgasm, they actually me,

bang, bang, uff, da, uff, da, uff, da, uff, da, uff, da. For real, I'm here. Working for bells, the dream come true. He'd later be described as a shiftless, low for a bum by a local newspaper. Now he was the man of the farm. He was Bell's lover, body hiding sidekick. And then Andrew, uh, Helgleyon showed up and took a shit all over Lampere's henchman's paradise. Helgleyon's tail shows just how much Bell enjoyed the game of luring men to their murder farm deaths. Helg's, hella, hella galean, hella galean, I think that's how you say this, fucking crazy name.

She didn't need any more money. She was in all likelihood, excuse me, quite rich by 1907. In addition to all of her very profitable scams, she also was running a working farm that was also profitable. She wasn't in any danger of becoming Paul's twig daughter once more. By 1907, it seemed like she was killing at least partly just for the thrill. How many minutes could she trick? She worked hard to trick Heligalian, beginning in the summer of 1906, even while other

respondents who are at were still arriving regularly at her farm, Bell embarked on a correspondence with Andrew. Uh, Helig, God damn it, his fucking name. I'm just calling Andrew. You know, the Andrew fucked up stupid last name. Andrew was a 49 year old weed farmer from South Dakota who had seen her advertisement in the Minneapolis, Tindenday. And over the course of the next 18 months,

she'd send dozens of letters to him, according to the most reliable sources between 75 and 80. She put some work into Lauren Andrew. Unlike most of her earlier victims, Andrew would no easy prey. He was a burly, thick, necked Norwegian who spent 10 years in the Minnesota correctional facility for robbing the village post office in Red Wing, Minnesota, then burning down the building in an attempt to destroy evidence. He's a bad boy. Who's like a bad boy? He'd make a nice little conquest. Addressing him as dear sir and signing herself as Mrs. PS Gunness,

Bell wrote back to Andrew on August 8th, 1906, describing herself as the owner of a beautiful home right in the midst of where the rich people have their fine summer homes. All kinds of fruit trees are bound here in good new houses with all improvements and fine boulevard roads. She claimed to have 74 acres of land,

which was 50% more than the truth, with an estimated value of 12,000 to 14,000 roughly equivalent to 400,000 today. To see if he was a worthy candidate for her attention, she clotted by asking him to tell me a little further respecting yourself and how much cash do you intend to invest? Get right to the point. Show me the money or beat it. Mom has got crates to buy, holes to dig. Dear friend, the letter began. You impressed me with being a good man with a strong and honest character, real genuine Norwegian in every respect.

It is difficult to find such a man and not every woman appreciates. There are plenty of these American dudes around here, but I would not even look at them no matter how often they ask me. Oh, she's really playing this letter well. And at first I thought the dude quote was bullshit. I was like, who says dude?

Back in 1906, oh, 708, like that era? Well apparently, a lot of people. Dude was first used in the late 1800s as a term of mockery for young men who were overly concerned with keeping up with the latest fashion trends. Later by the dawn of the 20th century, also used to describe clueless city folk who wanted to, you know, be a little more country and be able to do some farm and hunting type stuff. Bell knew how to stroke a guy's ego. Get out here at Androm sick, all these little girly men dudes couldn't butcher a hog or live to crate full of clothes or dead man's body if they're weak little lives dependent on it. I need a real man.

or live to crate full of clothes or dead man's body if they're weak little lives dependent on it. I need a real man. True, nothing or weagen berserker like you. Sure, these little dudes want to get mamas honey pots, but I be so happy once you get here. Then I will make a cream pudding. I bet you will. And many other good things. How long some it must seem for you to be up there all alone, but you must hurry and come to me as soon as you can. You have been there long enough and worked hard for many a day and now you must take

it easier for the rest of your days. Oh, she's just laying it on so thick. Another letter even more loving. To the dearest friend in the world. No woman in the world is happier than I am. I know that you are now to come to me and be my own. I can tell from your letters that you are the man I want. It does not take one long to tell when to like a person and you I like better than anyone in the world.

I know. Think how we will enjoy each other's company. Wink, wink, pain and hole. You, the sweetest man in the whole world. We will be all alone with each other. Can you conceive of anything nicer? I think of you constantly. When I hear your name mentioned, and this is when one of the dear children speaks of you, or I hear myself humming it with the words of an old love song. Maybe, maybe accompanied by this. Oh, no, we should not sing. That's nice.

I hear myself humming it with the words, it's music to my ears, my heart beats, it will rapture for you, my Andrew, I love you. Come prepared to stay forever. Oh, adorable. In a letter, Bell received in October 27th, Andrew mentioned that he'd been ill. You do not know how badly it makes me feel that you've been sick

and all alone, she replies the same day, make yourself some good hot punch, and put on some good warm underclothes, and keep good and warm all the time. Health is the best thing you can have, my dear friend. How fucked up is that line in particular? Telling someone how important health is. When the only reason you are riding them is because you're trying to kill them and take their money.

And meanwhile, while she's riding these letters, there's a good chance some of these letters are written on the same day she killed other dudes. It was important she repeated that no one else be privy to their travel plans. Delivering her advice with a flirtatious wink, come alone. Do not take anyone from up there with you before we become a little acquainted. Wink! Uff! Uff! Do you think that we would be best if we weren't... Do not take anyone from up there with you before we become a little acquainted wink oof, da, oof, da, oof, da. Do you think that we would be best if we were, oh no, she goes, don't you think we would be best if we were alone, especially at the beginning?

Wink! In early December 1906, Bell receives word from Andrew that he would be unable to make the move to LaPore to soon as he had hoped. My dearest friend, she writes back in the 14th, you do not know how down hard did I became when I read that you could not come home for Christmas and then you decided to remain up there all winter. Who will eat this Norwegian codfish, cream pudding, etc. and enjoy quote all the pleasures I have planned.

Shortly after the new year Andrew receives word from Norway this mother has died on January 12 1907 Bell sends a consoling letter urging him to take comfort from the knowledge that his mother has gone to her reward, that the Lord has called her home. I doubt she was very religious, though Andrew had evidently given Bell good reason to believe he would finally be joining her in the summer of 1907. He postpones his departure yet again and she gets frustrated. Now it is all ready the 25th of September and last year at this time, I wait for you

and yet you haven't come to me. I know you are a man I can trust and therefore I have waited so faithful, but it is so tiresome and lonely to wait so much longer and the fall is here again and I have the whole year managed the best I could without steady help because I've waited for you from one time to another as you have promised

and promised and it seems as if you will never get your belongings in order up here. And then she writes after maybe realizing that was just a little bit too much. She goes, JK, I'll suck the skin off your cock twice a day if you can just make it to my murder farm, wink, oof, duh. Of course you didn't write that. She was a classist serial killer. Now while she waited for Andrew, she kept herself busy killing other dudes. Throughout the 19, uh, throughout 1907, Gunnison started the following advertisement in the matrimonial column of the Chicago Daily Paper and knows

in other large Midwestern cities, personal, calmly widow who owns large farm in one of the finest districts in La Port County, Indiana, desires to make the acquaintance of a gentleman equally well provided with view of joining fortunes. No replies by letter considered unless center is willing to follow answer with personal visit tri-flers. Need not to but don't be fucking tri-flin. It doesn't need your tri-flin ass. See, it's money.

His advertisers were to the past they continue to work. All be Boatsburg and elderly widower from Iowa was constant appears next last year alive with the Laporte savings bank on April 6, 1907 when he mortgaged his Wisconsin land signed over a deed and obtained several thousand dollars in cash The Budsburg Suns Oscar and Matthew had no idea their father had gone off to gunners when they finally discovered his destination They wrote to her and she promptly responded saying she'd ever saw him Several other middle-aged men appeared and disappeared to bring in their money to the gun as far to out 1907. Get that murder money.

December 2nd, Bell wrote to Andrew again, dear one, make all the hasty beg of you. I'm so anxious about you. My only and very best friend in all things. I wait every day to hear that you are coming and be sure to arrange all matters so that you will not have to go back home anymore. Finally, all the letters and manipulation pay off in early January 1908 and you finally arrive in La Port, which makes Bel Gunn is very happy. Enhengeman Ray Lamfear, very sad. Ray had happily settled into the role of, you know, Bell's lover, carpenter,

farmhand henchman on Friday, January 3rd, a burly stranger in a shaggy fur coat that hung down below his knees, shows up in a few hours later. Bell tells Ray that she's turning over his bedroom to her guest. Ray, she said, could quote, go sleep in the barn. Heartless. You're a cold bastard. If you take on a new lover, give that lover your old lover's room, an old lover who lived and worked with you, who you then tell just sleep in the barn. And you're either in a real desperate financial situation or you're a fool or both. If you don't have the self respect to leave in that situation, Ray doesn't leave. He goes out and sleeps in the barn. I'm guessing at night he could hear Belle fucking Johnny Dutton new dick in his old bed.

Ah, Ray would later say, we got along all right before that and she used to come to my room at night, but after he came, she had no use for me. Frank J. Pidner, a cashier at the first national bank of LaPorte, was at his usual place behind the tellers cage on Monday morning, January 6, 1908. And when Belle Gunnus comes in with a broad shouldered man wearing a gray firt coat that reached will place behind the tellers cage on Monday morning, January 6, 1908, when Bell gunners comes in with a broad shouldered man wearing a gray firt coat that reached to his shins. Andrew presented three certificates of deposit from the first national bank of Aberdeen, South Dakota, announced that he wished to redeem them for their full value when pitner explained

that he would have to send them to the issuing bank for collection. Mrs. Gunners asked how long that would take four or five days, pit and are estimated. Though Andrew accepted the delay without complaint, Bell couldn't conceal her annoyance saying, uh, one historian writes, she argued and argued, but no cash was forthcoming and the last day went away. Moneyless. Andrew's only been found for three days. Bell's chomping at the bit to get her huge meat pods on that cash. The draft for the full amount arrived at the support bank January 11th, three more days elapsed before Mrs. Gunness and Andrew show up again. When Mr. Pidner lightly remarked that they seemed in less of a hurry for the money now,

he was told that Andrew had been sick for the past couple of days. Uh oh, bells get a little ahead of herself now. Not supposed to kill him until after you get the money. She almost messed up. Given the amount $2,839, no, they $75,000 in today's dollars. Pidner suggested that he ride a cashier's check. Andrew seemed willing, but Mrs. Gunness insisted that she that he'd take the entire summon cash. Pidner counted out the money half in gold coins, half in paper currency. He asked Andrew what he meant to do with it all and Bell snapped mind your own business.

And then she took the not looking like he was doing too well, Andrew out by the arm, kind of helped him out of the bank. And then he was never seen it from again, or never seen again, later that day, Ray Lamphere thought to have helped dispose of Andrew's dead body. Big fish, 75 grand in the murder piggy bank, big tough Norwegian disappearing on the farm. She can buy so many more murder ads now. Andrews brother, uh, Oslo was told nothing of Andrews plans except that he would be back home in a week surely. And when 10 days passed with no side of his brother, he grew concerned thinking that Andrew might

have gone to see a family friend named Mini Khan and Minneapolis. Oslo sent a letter and then Mini confirmed that Andrew,ader of his it stayed only about an hour. And I'm surprised to hear that Andrew is not homes, she wrote. John Hoth, the farmhand Andrew at hired to look after his livestock, also begun, had begun to wonder about his employees, employers, excuse me absence, looking around Andrew's cabin for occludes whereabouts. He came upon dozens of letters, which he promptly turned over to Ozzel.

All were signed, Bella Gunness. A few weeks later, maybe still butt hurt over her romance with the dude she just killed Ray Lamfear, gets into a big fight with Belle, and either Quitzer is fired on February 3rd, 1908. He would later say he was still deeply in love with Gunness, but he'd become jealous of the many men who kept arriving to court his employer. So abrupt was raised departure from the farm, that he left his clothes and carpenters tools behind.

Less than a week later, Bell hired a replacement, Joseph Maxson, who took up residence in the second floor bedroom reserved for Bell's favored hired hands. Now, you might be expecting to hear the rape himself had been murdered, but he was not. He did consult a local attorney over some missing wages and was advised to take Bell to court. Bell wasn't about to let Roy Array come after her money. This professional conniver got ahead of anything Ray, Ray might try to do by head into the report courthouse herself and declaring that her former employee was not in this right mind and was a minister to the public.

She somehow convinced local authorities to hold a sanity hearing. Lamfair was pronounced sane and released, but he must have been a little pissed that she did not to him. Gunn has complained to the sheriff a few days later that Lamphere had visited her farm and argued with her. And she laid that he, or she said that he posed a threat to her family and she then had Lamphere arrested for trespassing. Now we're going to find out a little while later.

I think this was all very carefully contrived. She is building a very specific narrative about Lamphere that will come back to help her greatly when she makes her great escape a while later. Yeah, and Bel Gunnus, she didn't fuck around. What a nightmare. At this point, Ray should have waved the white flag in just left town. Try it on March 13th, 1908, before Justice of the Peace, as he grew over Lamphere with no legal representation pleads guilty.

The trespassing is fine. One dollar plus court costs. While this is going on, Andrew's brother, Ozil still searching for an answer to the disappearance of his brother armed with Bella Gunnness as lead. He right to the report postmaster to confirm that Mrs. Gunnness is a resident of the city. Then he wrote to Bell. She responded on March 27th. You wish to know where your brother keeps himself. Well, this is just what I would like to know, but it seems impossible for me to give a definite answer. Bell claimed that after arriving in Chicago, Andrew sent her a letter saying that he was to look for his brother the next day. And he said, I shouldn't

write again until I heard from him. Since then, I have neither heard or seen anything. Now this is all I can say to you about the matter. I have waited every day to hear something of him. Just one day later, Bell files on affidavit, alleged that Ray Lamphere is insane. I'm on his 28. Man, Ray won't leave her alone, apparently, according to her. So she's going to keep making people think he's insane. Again, but he's just, he's building, she's building all this up this case can't seem

she can't get him declared insane uh... the second time either she does have a arrested again for trespassing early april his trial is there for the fifteenth to represent in the second trial lamphere retains the services of local attorney wit warden requested no not wit worked excuse meen, who requested a change of venue to the nearby town of Stillwell. How did I can name like that by the, worked? Childhood must have been fun, worked the squirt,

what you got on your shirt, worked? Why don't you wear a skirt, worked, worked, warden, squirt, burden? The proceedings took place at scheduled on Wednesday, April 15th, Lampere Found guilty again, ordered to pay a fine of $5 now plus court costs, total of just under 20 bucks.

The next week, Bell has ray arrested for trespassing for a third time. Bell would soon receive another letter from an anxious Ozil, feed him some more bullshit on April 24th. Ozil not satisfied, decides to come look for his brother himself on April 27th. The Gunnest Girls teacher at the Quaker School, Ms. Carrie Garwood remembers a disturbing story.

She recounted on the morning or she would later remember this disturbing story on April 27th. She says, I noticed the two little girls of Ms. Gunnest came into the school room crying. Their cheeks were swollen from weeping. They seemed in great distress. I called myrtle to me and asked if she was in trouble. She replied that she and her sister have been giving a terrible beating by their mother that morning.

It was the first time I'd ever seen the children behaving so when I was surprised. I pursued the questioning and Myrtle told me that she and her sister had started and played toward the seller of the gunnest house. Mrs. Gunnest rushed after them before they reached the bottom of the stairway and dragging them back had given them both a terrible beating.

You keep out of there. She told the oldest girl, don't you poke your faces where they are not wanted. I asked the children if they'd been forbidden to go into the cellar and they said they had, but they forgot the injunction bodies in the cellar. H H homes had his murder castle in Chicago where some bodies were sent down to the basement and Bell had her murder farm in Indiana where some bodies were priced down to the cellar. I wonder if Holmes at least partly inspired Bell by the way. She did live in Chicago the entire time, H.H. Holmes had his murder castle.

She knew he prayed and lonely women and then took their money, made them disappear. He also worked off of written correspondence to lure women to Chicago. The home story broke in 1893. Holmes has started making women disappear sometime between 1885 and 1890. Bell moved to Chicago in 1891. She was there the whole time this went on. It was big news, big gossip. And then she kills her husband, mad as a 1900.

She has her own murder farm up and running smoothly by 1904. Interesting coincidence at the very least. I bet he at least partly inspired her. The gunnest and lampier drama continues into the spring of 1908, a Miss Burda shult to clerk on the Chicago leader, dry goods toward Main Street, who frequently waited on Mrs. gunnest, reported that during the last week in April, Bell had come and looking very distressed. When Miss shult asked what was the matter, Bell recounted her troubles with lampier, describing the things which he did to harass her and declaring that he acted as if he knew something about her and that he was bold and annoyed her repeatedly.

The next day she comes back in the store venting more about lampfier saying, uh, this is clerk, we'll later say she told me that she feared he would someday set fire to her home and that he would murder her and her children. Very specific. She also told a lawyer in LaPort, um, E lightler, uh, let, uh, fucking these names, the leader,

if I can, whatever. She told a lawyer named Emmy, the leader that she feared for her life and that of her children. She also referenced here that Ray would kill her family and burn her house down. Do you really think Bell was afraid of Ray Lampere? I don't. Does it seem like she's kinda going out of her way to make sure that everybody knows

she's worried about him burning her house down and killing her and her kids? It does to me. I think this Ray Lamfear fear narrative, all part of Belle's exit plan. Belle, God damn it. Belle told the lawyer, the leader. She just read my notes, just to just do the tales like this, just to make sure I'm accurate.

Bell told the lawyer, the leader. She wanted to make out a will in case Lamphere. That'd be fun. Went through the threats. The leader complied, drew it up. She left her entire estate to her children and then departed little leaders offices. She did not go to the police to tell them about Lanfair's allegedly life threatening conduct, why not?

Because he wasn't threatening her. She was just set in the stage for another arson, a big finale. After drawing up her will, telling everyone who would listen, how scared of race she was, Bell purchased candy cake and a toy train at a Laporte General store, telling the clerk, Marie Farnheim that she was going to give the children a little treat. Then she purchased a large quantity of groceries, also picked up two gallons of carousine. Bell arrived home around 530, Farnhand Joe Maxson helped her with her purchases, carried the oil can into the house, stowing it in the entry under the back stairs.

An hour later, he and the family sat down to a supper of bread and butter, dried beef, salmon, beef steak, and potatoes. Everyone showed a fine appetite. Max and said later, we all had a couple of helping of beef steak and a lot of cookies and jam. By 8.30, Max and was having trouble saying awake, bidding the others good night. He headed for the stairway. The last I saw of Mrs. Gunness, he recalled she was sitting on the floor with her daughters and son playing with a toy engine and past

your coaches that she had bought her that day. Young Philip was almost five. Myrtle was 12. Lucy was 10. Based on what's going to happen to him, this is so fucked up. I just can only imagine what's going on her head as she is playing on the floor with her own children that she knows she will be murdering in a few hours. Joe Maxson suddenly wakes in the early hours of April 28th choking and coughing. His room filled with smoke. The house is on fire. He yanks on his boots, starts kicking and pounding the door. The separates his room from the main part of the house where Mrs. Gunnace and her children

slept. Joe tried yelling fire, but the smoke was too dense. You could hardly breathe. After trying to kick in the front door, he grabs an axe from the tool shed, chops out a panel, then part of the flaming roof collapses onto his bedroom floor and his boots and underwear. He leaps from the second story window of his room, barely surviving the fire that was closing in around him. He runs in the town to get help by the time the old fashioned hook and ladder fire department arrived at the farm. There's nothing left of the farmhouse, but smoking ruins. Four bodies are found inside the house.

One of the bodies was that of a woman who could not immediately be identified as gunners since she was missing her fucking head. That's right, her head was gone and it would never be found. The bodies of her three children, Mertle, Lucy and Philip are found in their beds that identified. Maybe they'd fallen unconscious due to smoke inhalation. Maybe Mama Gunnus had given them some nighttime strict nine syrup to help make sure they never woke up. County Sheriff Smutzer had heard about the lamb fears alleged threats quickly set out to henchmen. Lawyer, me, the leader came forward to recount his tale about gunnest as well and how she

feared lampfier would kill her and her family and burn her house down right on cue. Then young John sol, uh, solum said that he had been watching the gunnest place and that he saw lampfier running down the road from the gunnest house just before the structure up to inflames. Lamfier, snorted to the boy, you wouldn't look me in the eye and say that. And also that is kind of weird, which like this happened in the middle of the night. Why was this guy just sitting around watching the fucking road? And then when Lamphere says you wouldn't look me in the eye and say that he says, yes,

I will. You found me hiding behind the bushes, told me you'd kill me if I didn't get out there or didn't get out of there. I just doubt this. This is a weird confession to me. Very convenient. Based on the evidence, Lamfear arrested and charged with murder and arson and then scores of investigator sheriff's deputies, corners men. Many volunteers begin to search the ruins for more evidence.

The body of the headless woman presented some investigatory problems right away. Lamfear burning the house down to commit a revenge based killing only makes sense. If that body is the body of Bel Gunnace, if it's anyone else, then Bell has gone missing the night her house is burned down and kids are killed and she becomes the obvious prime suspect. Nozzie neighbor, Chris Christopherson, that farmer took one look at the charge remains of the body and said, no way. There's no way that's Bell Gunnace. So did another neighboring farmer, Elnickelson. So did Mrs. Austin color, another friend, or neighbor, I guess, friend kind of sheerling have friends of gunnus.

More of gunnuses, acquaintances, Mrs. May Olander, Mr. Sigward Olson arrived from Chicago. They examined the remains of the headless woman, also say, no way, not gunnus. Doctors then measure the remains and making allowances for the missing neck and head. State of the corpse was that of a woman who stood five foot three inches tall, weighed no more than 150 pounds, friends and neighbors, as well as a report,

Clotheers, who made her dresses and other garments, swore that gunness was taller than 5'8 and weighed between 180 and 200 pounds. Detailed measurements of her body are compared with those on file, with several report stores where she purchased her apparel. When the two sets of measurements are compared, the authorities concluded that the headless woman could not possibly be belgunnus. Even when the ravages of the fire on the body are taken into account, the flesh was badly burned

but still intact. Also, Dr. J. Myers examines the internal organs of the dead woman, sends her stomach's contents to a pathologist in Chicago who reports months later that the organs contain lethal doses of strict nine. Clearly, Bell poised in some other woman, cut her head off, put her body in the house before setting the fire. And then more incriminating evidence begins to spill forth from the crime scene. Uh, asal, uh, hege, hegellian arrived in the port and told Sheriff Smutser that he believed his brother, Andrew, had met with foul play at Gunn's hands and it bills farm, hand

Joe Maxson, come forward with information that could not be ignored. He told the sheriff that Gunn has had ordered him to bring loads of dirt by the wheelborrow to a large area surrounded by a high wire fence where the hogs were fed. Maxson said that there were many deep depressions in the ground that had been covered by dirt. These filled in holes, gunners told Maxson contained rubbish. She wanted the ground made level, so he filled in the depressions. Sheriff Smutzer took a dozen men back to the farm began to dig into these holes. On May 3rd, 1908, the diggers unearthed the body of Bell's daughter, Jenny Olson. We knew she never made it back to California.

She'd been chopped into roughly a dozen pieces. Right around the time the unearthed her body, she would have been 18, would have turned 18. Then they found the small bodies of two identified children, yikes. Then the body of Andrew, his body had been dismembered and decapitated, as days progressed and the gruesome were continued. One body after another discovered in the gun as hogpint. Most of the remains found on the property could now be identified because of the crude recovery methods, exact number of individuals unearthed on the gun as farm is unknown, believed to be

approximately 12th. The bell gun as horse became front page international news. Big time newspaper men from all over converged on the port writes one historian of the crime. Seven Chicago papers had a total of 22 reporters on the ground. Others arrived from New York, St. Louis, Detroit. There were 35 and all. The Chicago American within the space of a few paragraphs branded her as both the most fiendish murderer of the age and the most fiendish murderous in history Even after the fire and bells alleged death the letters kept coming in from wealthy man looking to partner with her At least one man was scheduled to meet with Bell the week of the fire saved almost certain death by the flames

Human remains continued to be unearthed bodies were found wrapped in gunny sacks Quick line and in place in the sacks, but have been poorly applied to the bodies. Many pieces of flesh clung to the bones with a line would not have not eaten. As the leg bones were drawn out, marks and then revealed for the first time the horrible and sane anger with which with the woman worked over her victims about the joints. She had hacked them with an axe. The bones had been crushed on the ends as though they had been struck with hammers after they were dismembered Two of the skulls were near each other. They had been buried face up

There was immediate media speculation that she faked her own death and Bell gunnest sightings began to be Began to be reported right away There were so many alleged sightings and even several arrests of women who are definitely not bell that one indiana newspaper would jokingly advise all large size women to stay at home so they are not mistaken from miss is gunness and held by the authorities. The gunner story became such a huge media sensation that the lake area in western railroad had arranged for special excursion trains to bring visitors to the port from Indianapolis and Chicago. Roughly 20,000 visitors descended on the port to see the murder

farm. New paper commentators compared the scene to a county fair or to a Sunday amusement park. Vendors calling their wares through megaphones, peddled peanuts, popcorn lemonade. Besides one of the graves where the moldering remains of two of Bell's bells victims had been unearthed, a portally fellow named man, excuse me, a makeshift for freshman stand, dispensing pink ice cream and cake. Ignoring guards at the site, scavengers climbed into the ruins of the cellar and emerged with whole backfills of debris.

Other men hopped into the open graves and groveled in the dirt for Goulish cube sakes. Many of the families who arrived in the morning, brought along lunch baskets. At noon time, they spread tablecloths on the lawn beneath their fur trees in the front yard or on the grass of the apple orchard and settled down for their meals. For two weeks, paper had been gleefully, papers had been gleefully exploding the tragedy. Such was the era of festivity that one would have thought the gun as farmed contained

his circus rather than a murder morgue reported one paper. Man, you guys know I have no problem talking about true crime. Obviously that's what we're doing right now. True crime stories big part of time suck. We joke around about it. But this to me is so extra fucked up like there are still unearthing recent victims. And motherfuckers are selling popcorn and hot dogs, souvenirs. People are stealing graved hurt. I always think about things like this

when I hear people talk about how depraved society has recently become. Now, we still have a long ways to go to reach this level of depravity. I mean, it seems that 1908 culture, a lot more fucked up in certain ways than 2009 culture. I mean, just imagine if a new serial killer was caught, they find a bunch of bodies in a

basement or backyard somewhere and then all of the sudden, there's some kind of dark carnival, some kind of fucked up farmers market out front. Get your elephant ears. Get your elephant ears. I hear the heads they found 20 minutes ago in the attic don't have their ears, but I do. Hot elephant ears to munch on while you look at cold corpses. Teach shirts, get your t-shirts.

Oh, shirts say I had a killer time in rock town on the back in today's date, and on the front they say instead of getting raped and murdered by the rock town ripper, all I got was this lousy t-shirt. The bodies they keep digging up might be cold, but these t-shirts are hot. Hot dogs. Get your fresh, all beef grass-fed hot dogs. Just because a neighborhood boy's body was found two minutes ago, and his hot dog had been cut off and stuffed in his mouth after he'd been raped and killed, does it mean you

can't stuff a tasty hot dog into your mouth? Hot dog grabbed these rock town murder dogs before they're gone. I mean, that's seen. I just described doesn't sound any more distasteful than what actually happened there. And I made up rock town, by the way. That's a random example. I don't want you fucking giggling. Where the fuck is the rock town, Ripper? Now back to even more evidence of Bell having set the fire and killed her children. Gunnest Dentist, Dr. Ira Piednorton, said that if the teeth dental work of the headless corpse could be located, he could definitely ascertain

if it was Bell. A local white haired prospector named Lewis Schultz, known to his friends as old Klondike, spent Monday, May 11th constructing his slewsparks. His slewsparks was a narrow wooden trow about, about 12 feet in length, and arranged it a downward angle on the ground. And how great is this character, by the way? Are you kidding me?

A prospector named Old Tondike just showed up. That's how I wear it like a shacking disk. Old Tondike's here. I have to be gold or silver or tees and then they're dirt. Old Tondike was surely finding it, my name is in Zwilich. It's in Old Kondike was surely finding it with my name, he was in the village. He's in Old Kondike. I back in the spring of 1849, I found three gold nuggets and four,

so it's a teeth before breakfast one more. Yes, outside of Sacramento, California. Big horse teeth, little chagel teeth, straight teeth, crooked teeth, shion teeth, rotten teeth. Old Kondike knows his teeth and he'll find them in some mud like a Hulk-fine and troubles. Whiskey, Lord, no, peace.

Well, Old Kondike worked Joe Maxson and a few other men began hauling shovelfuls ashes from the cellar of the incinerated farmhouse, dumping them into a big pile beside the contraption. The next day with the water wagons applying the necessary steam, our streams, excuse me, shult began the process of washing the debris in search of Bell's gold teeth. For over a week, they find nothing. On Saturday, May 16th, local attorney, Wirt, Warden, Wirt the Squirt, flatly declares to the press that evidence has now been deliberately manufactured to make it fit the theory of the detectives.

He's worried that someone will plant some teeth on the crime scene. It would make their jobs easier since now they'd have someone to blame for the murders, his client Ray Lamfear, someone they already have in custody, way more satisfying than if it were Belle. There was no doubt in his mind said, Warden, that the gold teeth of Mrs. Gunnus with special identification marks of the dentist will be found. And again, he's saying this is all going to be a big plan. And then just before noon on Tuesday, May 19th, Warden's prediction is fulfilled when moments after shoveling a large load of ashes into a slew box, shelts comes up with a pair of

dental bridges, consisting of two human canine teeth, their roots still attached, porcelain teeth and ground and gold crown work in between. In the end, pieces of upper and lower dental bridges are found. Dr. Norton has no difficulty identifying these prosthetic teeth. The upper bridge was the work of another dentist. Bill had it fitted in Chicago before moving to La Port and was wearing it when Norton first examined her. As a result, coroner Charles Mack officially concludes that the adult female body discovered in the ruins of his belly. Guns, get the fuck out of here.

They never found her head. And the body wasn't even burnt bad enough for people to not be able to identify it. And what her entire skull is just magically completely, just disintegrated in flames completely, but conveniently the teeth are left almost unscathed. Now Charles McIntyre, if you got bribed or something or maybe Charles McIntyre was a fucking idiot, days later Friday, May 22nd, a grand jury returns indictments against Ray Lamphier, charging him with arson and free first degree murder of Bill Gunness and of the three children and Andrew Hegelian. On the afternoon of Wednesday, June 17th, under the supervision of Undertaker Austin Cutler,

the remains of the woman officially identified as Bill Gunness, along with the corpses of the three gunness children loaded onto the lake shore train to Chicago at 10 a.m. the following morning, the four bodies unceremoniously interred in the forest lake cemetery. No service is conducted. No relatives are present, not even Bell sister, uh, Nelly, you know, attends. She didn't think the body was her sister. She thought her sister killed those kids. Most people weren't buying that gunnest and killed herself.

At least 75% of the people in and about LaPort are convinced that the arch murderous is still alive and in hiding wrote journalist Arthur James Peglar. Interviewed in his cell in the eve of his trial in November 8th, race stoutly maintained his innocence as he had from the start. He had been incarcerated for six months at this point. He says they can twist and turn the evidence all they like, but if they prove that I set fired that house, they will have to do it by false testimony. Proceedings get underway on the morning of Monday, November 9th, 1908, the trial

rages for four weeks. The prosecutor sets out to prove that Ray Burnd the house down for revenge and the defense tries to prove that Bella's still alive and she set the fire herself. Lamfear's lawyer, Wart Warn, worked to squirt, developed evidence to contradict the Nordens identification of the teeth and bridgework, a local jeweler testified that though the gold in the bridge work had emerged from the fire almost undamaged, the fierce heat of the, of the fire had melted the gold, plating on several watches and items of gold jewelry. Local doctors replicated the conditions of the fire by attaching a similar piece of

dental bridge work to a human jawbone, placing it in a blacksmith's forch. The real teeth crumbled and disintegrated. The porous land teeth came out, pocked and pitted with the gold parts rather melted. Right? The hired hand Joe Maxson and another man also testified that they'd seen clondike shouts. Oh, gold clondike. Take the bridge work out of his pocket and plant it just before it was, quote, discovered. Dam you'll conduct. All right, listen here, Tarnation Hellfire. I didn't plant those teeth. I didn't plant those nuggets back in Sacramento, Luxe.

Like folks said, I didn't either. I found those teeth in the dirt, Farron Legal, or my name ain't old conduct. Your name isn't old conduct, it's Louis Schultz. Yeah, that's my name. Okay, you caught me, I planted them. I took the jurors 26 hours to decide they're verdict. 7 p.m. Thanksgiving day. November 26, 1908, they find Ray Lamphier guilty, not of the murders,

but of only arson. In the end, they just didn't think Ray killed Bell and the kids. I guess they did think he was somehow involved in the fire. Judge Richter sends Ray to the state prison in Michigan City for an indeterminate term of two to 21 years, finding $5,000 disenfranchised him for five years. Re wouldn't finish the minimum sentence. He died of tuberculosis on December 30, 1909, but not before he confessed some super amazing details about Bell's final, Laporte con on January 14, 1910. You reverend EA shell came forward with a confession that Lamphere has said to have made

to him while the clergyman was comforting Ray on his deathbed. In this confession, Lamphere revealed Gunnest's crimes and swore that she was still alive. Lamphere stated to the Reverend shell and to a fellow convict Harry Meyer shortly before his death that he had not murdered anyone, but that he had helped Gunn his berry many of her victims. He explained how Bell would usually kill. When a victim arrived, she made him comfortable, charming him, cooking him a large meal. Then she drugged his coffee, and when the man was in a stupor, a stupor, she split his head with a meat chopper.

Other times, she would wait for the guy to go to bed and then enter the bedroom by candlelight and chloroform her sleeping victim. Remember when that one dude woke up with her with the candle? A powerful woman, Gunnus would then carry the body to the basement by herself, place it on a table and dissect it. That's why she wanted those kids in the cellar. She then bundled the remains, buried these in the hog pen, and the grounds about the house. Bill had become an expert at dissection, thanks to instructions she received

from her second husband, Peter Gunness, a butcher. He said her position of choice or poison of choice, excuse me, was strict nine. And that she also varied her disposal methods. Sometimes dumps in the corpse, dumps, dumps in the corpse into the hawk-scalding vet, and covering the remains with quick lime, and I'm on fire today.

A mouse just will not cooperate. It's not for lack of effort. Lamper even stated that if Belle was overly tired after murdering one of her victims, she merely chopped up the remains and in the middle of the night, stepped into her hog pen and fed the remains to the hog. So how many victims completely disappeared

thanks to those hogs? Ray also cleared up the mysterious question of the headless female corpse found in the smoking ruins of the gun as home. Ray said Gunn has had lured this woman from Chicago on the pretense of hiring her as a house keeper only days before she decided to make a permanent escape. Gunn is according to Lamphere, drug the woman, bashed in her head, decapitated the body, took the head, tied weights to it, dumped it in a nearby swamp, then she chloroformed her

children, smothered them to death, and dragged their small bodies along with the headless corpse to the basement. She dressed the female corpse in her old clothing, removed her false teeth, placing these beside the headless corpse to a shirt being, to a shirt that it would be identified as Bill Gunness. She then torched the house and fled. Maybe Old Klondike didn't plant those teeth, who knows? Who knows? Lamphere had helped her, he admitted, but she had not left by the road where he waited for her after the fire had been set. She'd be trading my kind of cross open fields

and then disappearing into the woods. Cracked me up of all this is true that she's throwing him under the bus, getting him all kinds of legal trouble while secretly possibly working with him. I mean, maybe he really was just kind of that dumb. Maybe he loved her that much to go along with some crazy plan of hers that made no sense,

but she sold it to him. She was very manipulative. Lamphere said that Gunners was a rich woman. She had murdered at least 42 men by his count. Perhaps more. I think definitely more if he's again telling the truth because she was killing guys way before he came into the picture. He also said she had taken accounts or amounts from these guys ranging from a thousand to

32 thousand dollars and allegedly had accumulated more than 250 thousand through her murder schemes over the years. A huge fortune about 6.3 million in today's dollars. Local banks later admitted that she had indeed withdrawn almost all of her funds shortly before the fire. And she was rich. This confession plus the banks admitting she withdrew her funds shortly before the fire. And she was rich. This confession plus the banks admitting she withdrew her money right before the fire really seals the deal for me.

I mean, think about it. She disappeared with roughly the equivalent of $6 million. Holy shit. Yeah. Look at all of this twig daughters. He's the Kasiara young hard-dipped, a lifter like. She won the murder game. The body believed to be that of Bell Gunnace was buried next to her first husband at

Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois. So now that we have all this DNA technology, why don't we just dig it up, see if it's someone other than Bell. Well, that was done. On November 5th, 2007, the remains were dug up with the permission of descendants of Bell's sister. 2007 the remains were dug up with the permission of descendants of bell sister the headless body was exhumed and Inspec to my team of forensic anthropologists and graduate students from the University of Indianapolis It was initially hoped that it sealed envelope flap on a letter found at the victims farm

We contain enough DNA to be compared to that of the body unfortunately not enough DNA So, you know the efforts continue to find a reliable source for comparison purposes. They weren't able to find anything conclusive one way or the other. Dammit. DNA technology evolves, maybe that'll change. And while our bell gun is tailed doesn't end with this inconclusive, you know, examination of what was supposed to be her body, this time-suck timeline does it. Good job, soldier. You made it back. Barely.

So whatever happened to Bel Gunnace, she was only 48 the night she either disappeared or burned up on that fire. It's pretty safe to say she didn't burn up. She had a lot of money. Could have come to be lived another 30, 40, maybe even 50 years or more. She could have hopped on another boat, started a new life. Once again, back in Scandinavia or any number of other countries, maybe she found a new murder scam to run. Maybe she just enjoyed getting away with a whole bunch of murders. Her kids killing her kids

is what disturbs me the most about Belle. If she could make enough money off of her death or it benefited her in some other way, like helping her escape, then she just killed you. Even if she'd raise you, raising kids apparently not much different from raising hogs, like I said before, for Bell. I can't believe I'd never heard of her also until about a year ago, and only because many of you wrote in requesting a Bell gun as time stuck. I feel like if she'd existed 20 years ago, committed the same type of murders, she would possibly rival Bundy for serial killer infamy.

I guess you could say the same about H. H. Holmes. A serial killer is like H. H. Holmes and Bill Gunn has to stir me kind of more in certain ways than killers like Albert Fish, Chobis, or Bundy, or Domer. I mean, those guys, those guys acted primarily on psychotic sexual impulses, right? Like, you know, they used sex to dominate. There was a sexual element to their crimes. Yes, it was about power as well. There were crimes of, you know, super used sex to dominate. There was a sexual element to their crimes. Yes, it was about power as well. There were crimes of, you know, super dark, super fucked up passion in some way. It was as if those guys really did have some kind of dark

passion during sight of them. A dark passenger with sick perverse desires, and they would brutalize others to temporarily satisfy those desires. Bellet seems just wanted to get paid. She didn't seem to have a type in that way. You know, like Bundy, Bundy looked to rape and kill primarily petite, brunette, attractive women, generally college age

women with long hair, part of the middle. I mean, if you Google his victims, it's pretty creepy. How similar they looked to each other. Bell would kill whoever she can make a buck off of. Didn't matter if you were a husband or a guy she just met her, a kid, she was raising her, a woman whose body she could use to fake her own death or maybe some other random kid that maybe saw something could have been a witness. I mean, who knows who those kids were that ended up on our murder farm? Everyone was a possible means to a dark end. So bell gunners became a legend that in modern times, we've almost totally forgotten.

She was a ghost story for decades had miss built all around her story. Her tale was a fast-any-one. The first for sure female serial killer covered here on Time Suck. Maybe second, if you count Madame Dale Feene La La Rie, but the evidence less conclusive with her as we learned. And I'm sure Belle won't be the last. I guess also maybe third if you count Elizabeth Bathory, but she also may not have killed anyone.

Lizzie Borden doesn't count. She wasn't a serial killer. She was just like a really bad daughter. Now let's take a few looks back at Paul's twig daughter's terrible life today with top five takeaways. Number one, Gunness, you know, she might be one of the best cases of someone who has zero fucks to give in the history of that concept. She killed husbands, randoms, dudes looking for her to love them. Her kids possibly other people's kids. She invested money.

She made off of murders to buy her tisements, murder more people. She successfully funded her life to insurance fraud via murder and arson and it worked and she got RATCH. Number two, opinions regarding Bel Gunnace's physical attractiveness very wildly. Some contemporaries thought she looked like a baby-footed BDI fat-handed swamp troll. However, she had no shortage of suitors and the one description we have of her bedroom abilities is that she was a sexy beast. Bel may have been beautiful, she may have not, and who cares?

She had something much more powerful than physical looks, she had charm and lots of it when she wanted to turn it on, her letters illustrate her manipulative abilities and the pretty diabolical meatball she had rolling around in her school. Number three, not easy to fake one's death, even at 1908, but Bell did it. Really adds an extra element to today's tale. Number four nicknames, Bell Gunnus had a ton of nicknames, the Indiana ogres, Lady Blue Beard, the widow of the midway, Lonely Hearts Killer, Hell's Bell, Toldface, Pulse Twig Daughter.

What if she became a murderer because she was so pissed over being called Pulse Twig Daughter? Be kind with your nicknames. You never know who they might send off into a murderous rage. Here's the suck dungeon. We have a lot of nice and thoughtful nicknames, like Queen of the suck, suck master, script keeper, microbane. Number five, a new info. Let's talk about Esther Carlson. Esther Carlson, a Scandinavian immigrant, long suspected of being LaPort's murderous

bell gunness. Check out what Esther was up to right after bell disappeared in 1908. Her first husband, Charles Hanson, drowned only nine months after she married him. Her second husband, Charles Carlson, whom she married in 1911, passed away in 1925 after 18 months of illness, possibly due to poisoning. A man living with her family, Gustav Olsen, died after a allegedly committed suicide by swallowing a bottle of strictine. Her husband's close friend, August Lindstrom, died suddenly in

1931 with enough arsenic and helm to kill 40 people. Later evidence linked Esther, who was oddly benefited by Lindstrom's will to the purchase of the poison. After she died of tuberculosis awaiting trial for Lindstrom's murder, authorities tried to check her body to see if she really was Bel Gunnus, a serial killer whose body was never positively identified. One Laporte witness who claimed to have been the only man alive to see gunness escapes and out of the fire said both women possessed the same peculiar twist to the mouth and had the same high cheekbones and eyes and eyes. A picture of three children also found an Esther's trunk. Two witnesses said they looked like gunnesses three foster children.

Carlson claimed she had never had any children. So why was this picture of three kids? What was it doing in her trunk? Kind of suspicious. Pat Schaller, a descendant of Lindstrom and Suzanne McKee, a descendant of Gunnace sister Nelly, both believed the two women were the same, but they weren't the same person. A few years ago, Norwegian murder researcher, Newt Eric Jensen proved just that. Newt is a native of Selbu, Norway, the hometown of Bailey. And this just that. Newt is a native of Seldo, Norway, the hometown of Bailey. And this proved that Esther was a super person before 1908. Jensen dug off the marriage certificate between Esther Johnson and her first husband Charles

Hanson, the date 1907, a year when Gunnuss was known to have been alive and well in the port Indiana. And on top of that, a Michaelael burns who claimed to have been married to ester sister handled ester's funeral arrangements and identify the body as being out of a sister in law record later confirmed that burns lived in heartford and was married to a woman with the maiden name of johnson we still don't know what happened to bell in nineteen oh eight other than knowing that there's no way that she died in that fire. Time suck, tough, five take away. Bell got it sucked. Another murder log thrown into the time suck, true crime, fire. It's everybody a little extra mush mouth today.

And again, kind of like I pointed out last week, there really is nothing I can do about it. So you guys, actually, if you just worked on, shut the fuck up. You know, trying to get a lot of information out there. And I feel great today, nothing's going on, but you know, some of that is the words, I just don't come. But I realize that the most of you don't care about it

that much, and you understand that, you know, we do our best here. Thanks to the Time Suck team, thanks to the Queen of the Suck, Lindsey Cummins, high priest of the Suck Harmony Vellacamp, Jesse Gardino, grammar dobner, Reverend Dr. Joe Paisley, Time Suck High Priest, Alex Dugan, the guys at Bidelixer, danger brain, access to peril. Thanks to Heather Knowledge Ninja Rylander for the initial research and Zach Scripp Keeper

Flannery for further research. Next week we take a break from the long reign of true crime here on the suck, beginning at least a two week long break. They don't be talking about loss technologies, no topic because everyone in spaces revote by such a wide margin. Our today's technological advances really the peak of science and technology, almost certainly. But many great civilizations have risen and fallen and sometimes when they die, their secrets die with them. The mask of steel, Greek fire, Roman cement, these are some real for sure technologies that

existed that were not sure if we figured out today They may have been lost forever. We haven't been able to exactly replicate them And then there's wild speculation about other things that may have existed like some type of flying machines in India Some kind of old Greek computer. These are hundreds and hundreds of years ago Some type of Middle Eastern battery ancient birth control medicine and more did that stuff really exist? Was it more advanced in some way than things we have today? We're going to look all over the world. We're going to learn so much to get in here and learn with us. And now let's learn what I messed up recently and learn some additional details to previous

sucks on today's time sucker updates. Tristan Spencer, time sucker knows a lot about sports and murder. We said last week in the top five takeaways that O.J. Simpson ranked second all time behind Robert Rosier on the list of former NFL players who stabbed the most people. Turns out he's no better than a distant third. Tristan wrote, you forgot the I five killer. The I five killer was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in 1974 and played for Portland State College. Good, Tristan wrote, you forgot the I five killer. The I five killer was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in 1974 and played for Portland State College. Good call Tristan. I did not know that.

Yeah, though Randy Woodfield was only convicted of one murder. He has been linked up to a total of 18 and is suspected by some of having killed up to 44 people along the I five quarter, connecting Washington, Oregon and California. And yes, he was drafted by the NFL in 1974 to play for the Green Bay Packers was cut from the team during training camp before ever playing a single game because of a series of indecent exposure arrests. And it appears he was a knife for many of his rapes and murders. And there's too many dirt bags to keep track of. They even know about that guy. Might have to do an high five killer suck someday.

Uh, OJ info coming in from time sucker, Eric, Eric, evil. There we go. Eric writes, Hey, Dan, great job in the recent OJ suck and Eric played a little pronunciation guy in there. Appreciate it. I had a supplementary supplemental story. I thought the code of the curious would appreciate. In the late 1990s, I was working for KXLY television and Spokane as an assignment editor.

And yes, now knowing you were getting your start and Spokane at the same time, I sincerely regret making bad decisions and outback jacks and fast eddies, nice, fast eddies. Instead of seeing you perform at the sports page, I wasn't the sports page, it was season ticket, but I know what you're talking about. You know what, actually I think it might have

have also been called a sports page, right? Anyway, I was an assignment editor at the TV station and the KXOI radio booth was literally 10 feet from my desk. It was about that time that local long time talk show host Mike Fitzsimmons tried to boost his ratings by making then sand point Idaho resident Mark Furman his new co-host. Fitzsimmons famous for his 56 hour nonstop broadcast during the eruption of Mount St. Helens, which by the way would make a great suck. Yeah, agreed. For at least a year, Ferman's desk was between mine and the studio, meaning that I set about

five feet from the guy for at least two hours every weekday. I never really tried to strike up a conversation with him, given that I'd seen the OG trial, and really didn't care for his arrogance. But the station ran Seattle Mariners games, and we'd often make baseball small talk while staring at some monitor about, you know, of Brett Boone or my camera drilling another one out of the park. Oh, I remember those days. The best part of the story is that one day while I was outside having a smoke, Ferman

Fitzsimmons and a few guys from the station were heading out to a charity golf tournament. I overheard them laughing as Mark Ferman joked that he was going to use a single black glove as a ball marker. At the time, I thought that was pretty tasteless. Now, it's still tasteless, but also pretty funny when you think about it. Keep up the great work. Can't wait to see you again when you're back into coma, Eric Ebel. Thank you, Eric, for sending that in. That's interesting. You know, these people having as the suck spreads, there's some updates I wasn't able to get to because they were more involved for this week, hopefully next week, where it's pretty amazing how far the suck is reaching now.

And we just, you know, whatever story we do, we seem to have people like, oh, I actually worked with a guy at this job and I'm getting arrested or I'm friends with the daughter of this person, you know, on and on. I hope that just continues. I need to show West Virginian time, so her Chad piercey some love here in this update. Chad writes, salutations, myster of Mushmouth mountain. I'm listening to your podcast. I've noticed that you don't seem to be keen on people from West Virginian.

In general, that's fine. I'm not here to start a fight. However, I do find it important to tell you that we are your kinfolk and mushy mouthness. There is a road here called Chavez de Frise, which has been mushed mouthed through generations of hillbilly cousin fuckers, it's simply being called chiver de friece. No shit, he says.

I fucking, I love it. I can say chiver de friece. I can't say that French chavez stuff. It is a road in a town with people that would refer to Rick and Zydeaux as the big city. Just wanted to pass that along for your amusement. Keep doing you. Keep on sucking Hail Nimrod.

Hail Nimrod. Chad and I love West Virginia. Sorry, anything else came across. Idaho is the West Virginia of the West and you guys are just as mush mouthed and me and I feel very at home there. Some of the best times I've ever had in stand-up comedy happened when I was in Pullman Square. The funny bones no longer there in Huntington, West Virginia, right across the river from Ohio, Tucky.

And now a canker store update coming in from Darleen, Sinclair to help anyone else afflicted. Darleen writes, hello, suck master. My daughter has turned me on to your podcast and comedy. She's a space. This is a huge fan. Also working on a career as an actor and stunt woman. We're coming to your show in Hollywood, but that's not why I'm writing. I'm trying to catch up on all the times that got the show. I had to jump ahead and listen to the OJ Suck. You mentioned

when you talked about being mumble mouthed that you suffer from canker source. I too was plagued with these for years, but discovered what has been in almost a 100% cure and ingredient and most toothpaste sodium, laurel sulfate will cause these sores and keep them going. Also known as SLS, most toothpaste contains this. Trader Joe's and Whole Foods carry brands that don't. But read ingredients because even some quote unquote natural toothpaste contains it because it's derived from coconut.

Also the combination of nuts and chocks that can create kinkersaures. So steer clear of those when you have an outbreak. Hope this helps. Hail Nimrod. See you August 29th. Yes, it does help. Darling, I now brush my teeth closest, closest fluoride toothpaste, C-L-O-S-Y-S.

And I use closest mouthwash. Lindsay and I can't find it at the store very often. I just ordered more off of Amazon. Sometimes you can also get it from your dentist. It's the only toothpaste I have found that doesn't fuck my mouth up. Also, if you have kangaroo source, stay away from acidic food and drink. I don't eat tomatoes anymore or drink bottle juice, especially citrus or drink soda. And I even barely have tomato based sauce anymore. It sucks, but it's better than having kangaroo source, you know, for anyone else dealing with that.

So thank you, Darleen. And I hope that knowledge helps some of the rescue last update from gerry car little something to give you some nightmares gerry wrote good morning you glorious sucking god i've listened to the Vietnam war episode this morning now the fence about believing you about the petite mantis hornet at first i believe you then i didn't then i did so i googled it well there is a mantis wasp hybrid looking insect in Vietnam is called the

mantid fly it is the same characteristics of the wasp and of a mantis wasp hybrid looking insect in Vietnam is called the mantid fly. It has the same characteristics of the wasp and of the mantis, but is not related to either. I'm sending a photo of the mantid fly. Thank you, Gary Carr. And Gary, I thought you were just fuck with me. I looked it up. Yeah, it's real and it's a scaryous hell looking. Luckily, they do not sting. However, there is a chance that they do work with other mantid flies to lift up your eyelids and crawl inside your head. And as far as I know, they might try and call them to people's vaginas and peels and ears and buttles. So when you look up a picture of one of these little monsters, I can't emphasize enough how important it is for you to think about these little critters crawling

inside of your body. Thanks for all the updates. Thanks Thanks Gary. Thanks to everyone who sends in time-sucker update messages. Thanks, time suckers. I need a net. We all did. Have a wonderful week, meat sacks. Come up with a better financial plan than murdering your family and strangers for insurance money and keep on sucking. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.

What a how much money I could get for killing Lindsay and Coderman Ro. I know we have some kind of life insurance. Let me pull it up. Huh. Huh. Really? Wow. Wow, that is way more than I thought.

Oh, looks like I get a new project. We're moving on up, we're moving on up. Get rid of the fam. Live alone and be so wealthy here. I'm moving on up. And I'm moving on up