True Crime Campfire - Venus Flytrap: Ye Olde Bad Bitch Belle Gunness, Pt 2

Episode Date: April 23, 2021

So campers, when we left you at the end of part 1, Belle Gunness’ 16 year old daughter Jennie had just gone missing, along with a revolving door of mysterious male “cousins.” She used her beautiful La Porte Indiana farm to lure bachelors to their eventual doom. It seemed like nothing could stop her. Join us for part 2 of this bizarre true story--you won't see the ending coming.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. So, campers, when we left you at the end of part one, Belle Gunniss's 16-year-old daughter Jenny had just gone missing. along with a revolving door of mysterious male cousins. She used her beautiful Laporte Indiana farm to lure bachelors to their eventual doom. It seemed like nothing could stop her. This is part two of Venus Flytrap, E Oldy Bad Bitch Bell Gunnus. So in the summer of 1906, Bell connected with yet another man who responded to one of her ads in a Norwegian language newspaper.

You know, wealthy widow needs partner to help run farm, etc. Her new pen pal was 49-year-old Andrew Helgelian, and they had an extensive correspondence for a year and a half before they ever met face-to-face. Conservative estimates say they exchanged at least 75 letters in that time. Andrew kept all the letters Bell sent him, and they're fascinating. They really give us insight into the way she hunted for her. her victims. But because Belle cared for nothing and no one and was probably too smart to hold on to evidence that might hang her for murder, we don't have any copies of Andrew's letters to her. So it's like you're listening to one half of a phone conversation on the train. Except

fortunately for you, it's the juiciest half. According to Harold Schechter, the letters were written in Norwegian, and when they were sent to a translator later on, the translator said the handwriting sucked and the spelling was awful so bad that they couldn't be 100% sure their translation was accurate. That's bad right there. Dang. Nevertheless, the letters painted quite the picture for Andrew. Now, Andrew was a little bit more rough trade than Bell's previous marks, which is probably why it took so long for her to get him to visit. He was big and burly, and the only picture we have of him is a mugshot, taken while he was serving time in Minnesota for robin a post office and then burning it down.

Oh, wow. These two were soulmates. I think it's kind of a shame that she killed him. Like, she could have partnered up with him instead. Absolutely. They could have ridden off into the sunset together while there are various arsons burned behind them. Aw, that's romantic. It really kind of is, yeah.

There's a lid for every pot, people. Just don't murder them, you know. When Andrew was released from prison, he joined his brother in South Dakota and started work on a farm. He was getting his life back together, and his brother and sister both said they were a tight-knit family. So Belle had to take her time with Andrew, reel him in little by little. In her first letter, she wrote, Dear friend, you impress me with being a good man with a strong and honest character. A real genuine Norwegian in every respect, and 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 much they ask me. Indiana is mild in the winter and not so very warm as South Dakota in the summer, with plenty of rain and no storms, and the land is all good so we can raise everything. There is a good market for everything, because Leport is so near Chicago, and the land is going up all the time. There are very many who are almost millionaires now by having bought pieces of land a few years ago and have doubled the price many times and sold out the land and small lots to business people in Chicago for summer homes. You will have a much better chance to make use of your capital here, and it will probably make you independent for the rest of your life.

Well, that's true when the rest of your life is like a week. Just what she's planning for him. Yep. I have chosen you out of over a hundred applicants. Take all your money out of the bank and come as soon as possible. Now, I don't know about you campers, but that strikes me as really similar to the Nigerian print scams that you see today. So you have an immediate compliment, oh, you're not like these other men, you're special. You have an offer that's too good to pass up, value of the land and the money, and then you have that sense of urgency.

Look, I'm a hot commodity over here. There's a hundred dudes that want a piece of this. So you better get your shit in order and get here now. But this wasn't Andrew's first rodeo, so they stayed pen pals at first, which must have frustrated Bell, who, as we know, liked to keep a brisk turnaround going. Different guy every week. This guy was taking forever. So less than a month after their first correspondence, Bell upped her game. She poured on the romance. She wrote,

I long so to know you better, but I will try to wait with patience until you get here. I have now thrown away all the answers I got and keep all of yours in a secret place by themselves. You truly do not know how highly I prize them, as I have not found anything so genuinely Norwegian and real in all the 20 years I have been in America. I do not think a queen would be good enough for you, and in my thoughts, you stand highest above all high, and I will not let anything stand in the way of my doing anything for you. Wow. we shall be so happy when you once get here then i will make cream pudding and many other good things how lonesome 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 so hard for many a day and now you must take it easier for the rest of your days

whew lord have mercy we're talking cream pudding y'all already who's getting hot in here now hot under the In another letter, she wrote, I wait so for you, when you come, then we will have many calves, little pigs, chickens, chickens, this will be fine and lots of fun, won't it? All these animals I have, I make pets of them, and they all like me so well. Yeah, I bet they do. You let them wander all over the neighbor's land and do whatever the hell they want. That's true.

So what does this sound like to y'all? Are you screaming love bombing at your phone? I have a feeling you are. Oh yeah, Belle was laying it on with a trowl fluffing up his ego. He was the norwegianist, Norwegian, the realest of the real, a king among men, and she couldn't wait to be his cream, pudding, slinging queen. I mean, what man could resist, right? But another theme in her letters was much more ham-fistedly sinister.

She was always reminding him that they needed to keep their plans a secret. She wrote, my dear, do not say anything about coming here, like to assist her. then the surprise will be so much greater when she finds out. It is so much pleasure to keep this secret to ourselves and to see how surprised everyone will be when they find out. Now sell all that you can get cash for, and if you have much left, you can easily take it with you, as you will soon sell it here and get a good price on everything.

Leave neither money or stock up there, but make yourself free from Dakota, so you will have nothing more to bother with up there. Wow. Yeah. That's subtle, Belle. come alone with all your money and don't tell anybody where you've gone, because reasons. Not murder reasons, other reasons, good reasons. Just do it. Just do it.

She also led him on with pretty thinly veiled promises of sex, writing in one letter, So dear friend, this is a secret between us and no one else. We will have many things between us, which no one else will know, which we will enjoy, won't we, my dearest friend. I will surely see to it that you will enjoy yourself. Signing off, she wrote, I know now that you are a man with knowledge of many things, and have seen how smooth and evil so many people are, and how much fraud and tricks they are up to, and would take all one head and do not want to work but live on others,

and do not care what evil they do. My friend, just keep away from such people. Bell, you bitch. But we see this all the time with scammers. They'll say stuff like, Now, I want to be sure you're totally comfortable with me before you send me any money, because, you know, for all you know, I could be a con artist or something. So, yeah.

Pretty ominous thing to say, considering her plans for Andrew. But I think much of her writing shows that she was enjoying the chase. She liked knowing things her victims didn't. All throughout her letters to Andrew, you can start to see her masks slip a little bit. In fact, I think it's time for a little creepy shit that Bell said to Andrew, speed round. Come alone. Do not take anyone from up there with you before we become a little acquainted.

Do you not think that it would be best if we were alone, especially at the beginning? You talk of leaving some of your money up there. This I would not do if I was you. My dear friend, have all the money changed into bills, into as large a denomination as possible, and sew them real good, first on the inside of your underwear and put a thin piece of cloth under so it would not be noticed. Do not say one word about it to anyone, not even your nearest relative. Yeah. So just a little bit of relationship advice, folks. If your new online love interest says any of that shit to you or anything remotely similar to that, you need to be making

a U-shaped hole in the wall. If a statement starts with come alone and it isn't a line from a movie about, like, a bad kidnapping trope, then you need to run fast and run far. Bill Gunnus was out here spouting the lines from bad action movies before they were even a thing. Presumably, while twirling a fake mustache and cackling. Evily. Yeah.

How fucking scary is all that? Well, it gets worse. When Andrew's mother died in December of 1906, causing another delay in his visit, she told him, It is hard when the bond breaks between which keep together the parents and the children. This was just a few months after Belle murdered Jenny, her oldest child. So I'd say she may have known a thing or two about breaking familial bonds.

That is super creepy. So, okay, her correspondence with Andrew was ongoing for about a year and a half, and while that was still going on, in June of 1907, Bell decided she needed another farmhand. She found one in the form of Ray Lampere. Now, he's probably one of the most central characters of this case. He was 37, so a lot less naive than the 19-year-old farmhand that he was replacing, and he had a little bit of a history on him. His father was the representation of the age-old story of success

followed quickly by a dramatic fall from grace. He was a teacher, politician, and a justice of the piece, but his extracurriculars included getting hammered and not much else. According to one Laporte newspaper, he had drunk away his money, his respectable social position, and his happy home. Now, when Ray was dry, he was a talented woodworker, but he was schnockered off his ass more often than not. And in addition to the booze, he had a thing for gambling and sex workers, which is a surefire way to make sure you have no extra money in your bank account. One story said he'd lost 50 bucks in one night of gambling, which was a lot of scratch back then. So Vegas, here he comes, right?

I'm sure to Bell, having an unreliable man around who spent his off hours curled up inside a whiskey bottle, was pretty much the ideal situation. I mean, he's probably not going to ask any uncomfortable questions about the constant stream of men showing up and then disappearing. Because, you know, he's not going to remember them. That wasn't the only benefit of hiring Ray. She also, according to Ray at least, took him as a lover. Ooh, boy. Like with most men that found themselves in bed with Bell, historians love. of trying to figure out why he would sleep with such a disgusting monster of a woman.

One armchair psychologist said of Ray's attraction to Bell, to a lonely man with an urge to be mothered to return to the security of the womb, such a woman may have represented the safety of fulfillment without any of its responsibilities. Yeah, with all due respect, shut the fuck up. Oh, boy, yeah. In our professional opinion, the answer is likely a little bit more carnal. Another man who worked for Belle told his buddies that she was pure dynamite in the sack. She'd, quote, make love to him with sweet words and caresses and would purr like a cat. She was soft and gentle in her ways.

I never saw such a woman. There you have it, folks. Bell could throw it back with the best of them. Yeah, we told you we'd get to the purring, right? I wish I could understand, like, how that would work. Like, was she going, mm-hmm or something? Or was it just a pedip? Hello.

Oh, my God. Was Belle Gunnus a furry? Yeah, early 20th century furry. I shudder to think what those suits would have been made of. You know, like, you'd probably just hollow out an actual horse. Like a ton-ton. Wait, dibs on 20th Century Furry as my experimental techno-rock band name. No, that one's taken already.

Really? They're on tour in Eastern Europe right now. Oh, fuck, you're right. So regardless of why Ray Lambair was attracted to Belle, it was clear to the townies that they had to close relationship. It wasn't long before Ray started bragging to his pals that Bell wanted to marry him. She was begging him for it. She gave him expensive gifts. Yeah, it's not clear whether Ray was just participating in locker room talk, barf, or if he was telling the truth, but we think it's pretty likely that he actually was.

yeah well he didn't have any actual like real money so if she wanted to squeeze a dime out of him she'd have to marry him get an insurance policy and then get rid of him so i'm sure she was probably begging him but not because she craved his whiskey dick so badly whiskey dick whiskey dick oh my god that's the indie rock band name right there whiskey dick and the dicklets I'm sorry Okay, so back on track I can't So it took more than a year of letters back and forth But in January of 1908

Bell's pen pal slash next target Andrew Would finally heed Bell's siren call Arriving in the port with his savings in hand Now obviously old Whiskey Dick Ray Or as I like to call him Lush Limbaugh didn't know what Bell was plotting. He was enjoying his time as Bell's right-hand man, so when this competitor for the widow Gunnace's affections showed up,

he was jealous and he was pissed. He was especially pissed when Bell kicked him out of his room and made him go sleep in the barn, which as far as rejection goes, is pretty brutal. Of course, Ray had no idea that Bell was going to murder the shit out of Andrew, so he was a little hurt. So Ray decided he, was going to check out the competition.

And the day after Andrew got there, he tried to talk to him. I assume it went something like purring, right, bro? Yeah, bro, purring. And then some kind of complicated bro handshake. But before they could really bond over the sexual proclivities of their host, Bell appeared behind them like a ghost and pulled Ray aside. She was not happy. She told him in no uncertain terms to leave Andrew,

Higelian alone. Later, Ray would tell the police, 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. Aw. Buddy, I know what's hard. You know, we've all been there, man.

He wants some ice cream or something. Watch sex in the city. Yeah, exactly. So while Ray sat and marinated in his own resentment, Bell's plans for Andrew moved forward. On January 6th, a bell. Bank teller reported that Andrew and Bell came in with three certificates of deposit from his hometown bank in South Dakota. The teller told him it would be a few days before he could release the

money as they had to send the search to the old bank and confirm they were genuine. Andrew had no problem with that, but Bell, who had spent a year and a half telling him to sew cash into his underpants, was pissed. And she went full Karen and insisted that they released the money immediately. But, of course, as with most Karen's, her little hissy fit didn't change the policy. So they would still need to to get the cash. Despite her hurry, Bell and Andrew didn't return to the bank until January 14th, a few days after the money it arrived. He asked him about it, and Bell told him that Andrew had been sick. Cue ominous music. The total amount of Andrew's savings was a little over $2,800, which is $75K in today's money, and the teller told them that since it was so much, they should take it in

cashier's checks. Now, Andrew seemed to agree, but Bell, of course, didn't. She said, they'd be taking it all in cash. Thank you very much. This bank teller must have been the greatest customer service rep in all of human history, because despite the little Karen vibe that the entire encounter was given off, he still made, you know, conversation. He asked Andrew and Bell what they were going to be using the money for. Just small talk, you know, not really caring about the answer. He's just trying to be friendly. And Bell, who apparently was feeling a little bit tense, for some reason, bit his head off. Mind your own business. Yeah, she's a pleasure. And that afternoon, Bell sent poor old Ray on an errand to Michigan City 13 miles away.

She told him one of her plentiful cousins would meet him there to trade horses. And she said if her cousin didn't show up, he should just spend the night there. So Ray and a friend he brought along for the ride waited in Michigan City until about 8 p.m. that night. No cousin. And in a fit of peak, and I suspect after a few little drinky-poo's, he decided to head back to the farm. He told his buddy he was going to see what the old lady was up to. Yeah, Ray, that's a real head scratcher. As he was leaving, Ray promised his buddy he'd meet back up with him for a drink later,

but he never showed. What did he discover, I wonder, when he stormed back to confront Bell and her guest? All we know for sure is that nobody ever saw Andrew Higalian again after that night. A couple of weeks later, on February 3rd, 1908, a storm was a bruin at the Widow Gunnus farm. stories vary. One says that Bell fired Ray. Another says that Ray quit over not being paid. Either way, Ray and Bell's relationship was done, and it was an ugly break. Ray stormed off and left all his stuff there. A day or so later, he spoke to an attorney, who told him he needed to go back to the farm, demand his pay, and all his stuff, and if his things weren't returned to him, he should tell Bell

he'd sue her. Now, if this attorney had known anything about Bell Gunniss, he'd have probably told him to forget his stuff and take the first train to get the fuck out of Here'sville, because separating Bell from her money is like stealing from a dragon hoard. But Ray was apparently no coward, and apparently, he also had no radar for danger and no sense of self-preservation. So, he showed up at the farm and made his demands. Bell, of course, promptly refused, and then she wrote a letter to the sheriff, telling him

Ray was harassing her and her family. And then in March, she reported that she saw Ray, quote, skulking around on her land. He was arrested and charged with trespassing, pleaded guilty, and was fired a dollar plus court costs. Meanwhile, Andrew's family was starting to get worried. See, Andrew had actually followed some of Bell's weird supervillain instructions. He didn't bring all his money or sell any of his livestock,

but he did keep his intention secret. All he told his brother, Asla, was that he was going on a trip and would be back in a week. So after Andrew went radio silent, Asla asked the farmhand that was watching Andrew's livestock if he could sort of poke around for clues. The farmhand found Bell's letters, dozens and dozens of them. Using the address on the letters, Asla wrote to Bell, asking after his brother. She responded telling him that she wanted to know the same thing. She said Andrew had stopped by

while he was on his way to search out their other brother, a professional gambler, but he hadn't stayed long. She said he was in Chicago, Lashy Heard, with plans to head to Norway. But Bell had other problems unrelated to nosy relatives. She was also trying to get Ray Lamphere

to leave her alone. At the end of March, she tried to get him declared insane. She said he was lurking around her house every night, peering in the windows like a creep. And she described him, in her police report with a flood of nasty adjectives. Ray was silent, melancholy, restless, seclusive, dull, profane, filthy, intemperate,

sleepless, and criminal. Damn. Dang, she felt threatened, she said. Ray was out of his mind. In response to this report, the police got a team of doctors to observe Ray. See if he really was mentally unstable, as Bell was implying. And this is pretty funny. Remember Dr. Bo Boll?

the coroner who accused Belle of murdering Peter Gunniss. How could I forget? Turns out, he was Ray Lamphere's doctor, and he said he'd never seen any signs of trouble from Ray. The other docs agreed and ruled that Ray was not insane. Now, why would Bell try so hard to draw Ray's mental condition into question? Is it because he knew something about her that would make her look bad if he decided to tell someone? Losing this battle didn't thwart her.

her. She had Ray arrested again in April for trespassing. Around this time, Asla Hagellian wrote to Bell again, asking if she could send the letter that she claimed Andrew wrote her from Chicago. But wouldn't you know it? It was stolen. Aw. My who? Well, that rascally Ray Lamphir, of course. She wrote to Asla that the police had arrested Ray and that, quote, others have told me that Lamphir was jealous of Andrew. Who steals a letter? Like, that's a... The most ridiculous story I've ever heard. That's like middle school stuff. Was Belle feeling the noose tightening around her neck?

Was she desperately trying to frame someone else for Andrew's disappearance? Mm-hmm. I mean, it looks like it. At his trial for the trespassing charge, Ray put up a defense. His attorney went for blood, bringing up Bell's missing daughter, Jenny, the death of Peter Gunniss. But despite riling Bell up quite a bit, the court wasn't impressed. by Ray's attempt at character assassination. They found Ray guilty.

He had to pay court costs plus a $5 fine. Ouch. That wasn't the end of it, though. Just a few days later, Bell had Ray arrested again for trespassing again. Big fan of poking the bear, I guess. So they went to trial yet again. This time, Belle's daughter Myrtle testified. She said Ray was back to his prowling and that she'd seen him by the family's pig pen.

this time though Ray had a witness for his defense this guy testified that at the time of Ray's alleged prowling he was actually six miles away at the home of his new employer and much to Bell's annoyance Ray was acquitted

So was Ray actually stalking her You know it's certainly possible I mean most people who say they're being stalked or telling the truth But of course Bell was a manipulative person And it fits her M.O. to lie about something like that especially since she was more than capable of defending herself. Right.

Maybe Ray saw her kill or dispose of Andrew Higalian and she needed to have him labeled insane and vindictive towards her and her family. That way, if he ratted her out, everybody would think he was just a mentally unstable drunk, trying to cause trouble out of jealousy. But we do know that Belle told other people about the stalking and seemed, you know, genuinely worried when she did.

She told one woman, I fear that he will someday set fire to my home in buildings and will murder me in the children. On April 27, 1908, Belle's daughters Myrtle and Lucy went to school in tears. Concern their teacher asked what was wrong. They didn't seem to want to say, but the teacher kept pressing and eventually Myrtle told an awful story. She said they were playing and decided to head down into the cellar. But before they could get to the landing, Bell snatched them up and gave them both a vicious beating. She said, you keep out of there.

Don't you poke your faces where they're not wanted. Whoa. Myrtle said that their mom had actually forbidden them from playing in the cellar before, but she'd just forgotten, and Belle flipped out. So, hmm, I wonder why. Could there perhaps have been something down there she didn't want them to find? I wonder. That same day, Belle visited her lawyer and updated her will.

She said she was terrified that. that Ray was going to burn her farm to the ground with her in it. The lawyer, whose style, I got to admit, I kind of like, told her she should just shoot him and get it over with. But Bell waved that option aside. Instead, she updated her will to leave her fortune to her kids, Myrtle, Lucy, and Philip. If they died too, everything would go to the Norwegian children's home of Chicago.

Now, campers, I wonder if anything stood out to you about what I just said. Is there somebody missing from this picture? Why didn't she include her oldest daughter, Jenny? I mean, we know why, but her lawyer didn't. Getting a little sloppy there, girl. So, Belle took her updated will to the bank, put it in her safety deposit box, and deposited $730 into her account.

After that, she stopped by a shop and bought candy, cake, and a toy train. The clerk asked if it was a kid's birthday, but Belle said, No, I'm going to give them a little surprise. God, is anything she says, terrifying? No, no. She could make the cat in the hat sound like Stephen King. She's just creepy as shit. Mm-hmm. It was at the general store that afternoon that Bell made her most

interesting purchase. She bought a ton of groceries and two gallons of kerosene. While she was there, Ray Lamphir stopped by to buy some chewing tobacco and the grocer said, No words passed between Lamphir and Mrs. Gunniss, not even a nod of recognition. He did notice, though, that Ray followed Bell outside and watched her ride off on her buggy. Creepy. At home, the new farmhand, Joe Maxon, helped with the groceries and sat with the family at dinner. He said they had a veritable feast, way more than usual. After dinner, the family played games, and at 8.30, exhausted, Joe headed off to bed.

He said, The last I saw of Mrs. Gunniss, she was sitting on the floor with her daughters and son, playing with the toy engine and passenger coaches. Joe woke up at around 4 a.m. Drowsy and sleep-addled. For a moment, he thought Bell was up and making breakfast. Badly, by the smell of it, he thought she must be burning the pancakes. But then the penny dropped. He realized his room was full of smoke. So he jumped up, threw on some pants, priorities, and tried yelling for Belle and

the children, but the smoke was too thick to see anything. When he looked out the window, he saw that the house was in gold. bolt in flames. So in a panic, he grabbed his bag and as many of his things as he could, again, priorities, and hauled ass out of the house. He tried going back in to rescue the others, but the fire was too hot. As he watched, the roof collapsed into his bedroom, where he'd been sleeping just minutes before. Yikes. A neighbor woman, who was up making breakfast for her family, saw the smoke and flames at Bell's place and woke up her family to go get help. The men rushed over to the Gunness Farm and broke the windows of the children's and Bell's rooms, trying to get their attention.

There was no response, so one of the guys found a ladder. They looked into both bedrooms and saw nothing. Quote, no bodies, just a mattress on the bed, no body or sheets. By then, the fire was coming up through the floor, and it was too dangerous to go inside. The men sent Farmhand Joe into town to get the police. By the time he got back with Sheriff Albert Schmutzer, great name, you know, The house was falling down. The volunteer firefighters arrived soon after that and got a bucket chain going, but it was way too late. By the time the sun rose, the fire was completely out, and the work of the firefighters

made the rebel cool enough to approach. They'd also attracted a huge crowd of looky-loose. As the firefighters and police poked through the ruins of the house, it became clear really fast that this was not an accidental fire. It had started just outside the cellar door, and it was most definitely arson. The crowd caught wind of this immediately, of course, and the gossip started spreading even faster than the fire had. People thought that maybe Bell had set the fire herself, because of all the trouble she'd been having with Ray Lamphere. Sheriff Smutzer, though, had other ideas.

He thought Ray was probably the culprit, and he signed a warrant to go put the grab-us on him, ASAP. In the meantime, the investigators got to work looking for the bodies, Bell, Myrtle, Lucy, and Philip. It took a while, but finally, in the very back corner of the same, cellar, they found them. One reporter said, the bodies of the mother and her children were found piled up together, indicating that the mother had evidently made an effort to escape from the house with the children clinging to her. All four of the body showed signs of severe burns. Some of the

limbs were reduced to ash, damaged by falling debris. Bell's body was headless, and as far as the investigators could tell, the skull was nowhere to be found. Later examination would show that her head wasn't severed, but burned off. At least, that's what they thought. There's some doubt about that, which we'll get into later. Her left forearm was burned off, too, and her right arm was gone entirely. Her left foot was gone, and her right leg was cremated to the knee. Her internal organs, though, showed no signs of damage. Cause of death was smoke inhalation and burns, a horrific way to go. Ray was on his way to work when the deputies put the habeas grab-us on him. When he saw them approach, he asked, did those three children and the woman get out of the building?

Wow. Wow. Smooth, man. The deputy has asked how he knew there was a fire, and Ray said he'd seen it on his way to work. So they said, well, if you saw it, why didn't you yell? And Ray was like, I didn't think it was any of my business. Charming. Yeah. Ray Lamphere, the hero Gotham deserves.

So they hauled him in and questioned him, and finally he admitted that he hadn't told anybody about the fire, because he knew he'd be blamed for it. And there was another little detail he was scared to admit. The night before, he'd spent the night with wait for it, a black woman. Gasp! Her name was Elizabeth Smith,

and the local newspapers charmingly called her N-word Liz. Gross. She was the daughter of freed slaves from Virginia, and in her youth had been so gorgeous that she had the favor, quote, of many of the young men at the time, all of whom had black faces.

Man, God love that super sensitive early 1900s reporting, right, y'all? Yikes. Anywho, apparently our boy was embarrassed about having spent the night with a black woman because he wasn't already a big enough piece of shit. I'd had to add that. Elizabeth, who was by now 70, by the way, so apparently maybe Ray did have a few mommy issues going on after all. But she confirmed his alibi.

She said Ray was with her the whole. night after dinner. He set her alarm for 3.30 a.m. and then slept through it. She had to wake him up after four. Now estimates put the fire starting around 3 a.m. and burning for two hours. Ray couldn't have started the fire, returned to Elizabeth's bed and then fallen back asleep. Despite this alibi, though, the police were still convinced he was guilty and the sheriff charged him with murder. On May 5th, after most of the rubble had been cleared, three civilians remained, picking through the remains of the house. Farmhand Joe Maxon, neighbor Daniel Hudson, and Asla Hagellian.

Asla had set out for the port as soon as he heard about the fire, worried his missing brother Andrew was involved. Joe and Hudson were looking for Bell's head. Andrew Higalian, of course, wasn't one of the four bodies found in the cellar, but his brother Azla wasn't satisfied with that. He was convinced that his brother had been murdered. He asked the farmhand, Joe, if he knew of any fresh holes dug up. on the property in the past few months, and Joe was like,

huh, funny you should ask. He remembered that back in March, his boss had asked him to haul a wheelbarrow full of rubbish to their hog lot, where he dumped it in a hole and buried it. Joe took Asla and neighbor Guy Hudson to the spot, and as they poked around in the earth, a stench hit them like a wrecking ball. Ugh. When Joe had buried the rubbish there months ago, it was just a bunch of tomato cans, fish and stuff.

nothing that would reek like this. The implications of what that meant dawned on all of them at the same time, and they each grabbed a shovel and started digging. About four feet down, the shovels hit something solid, something wrapped in a burlap sack. As they poked at it with the shovels, the sack ripped, and a severed arm flopped out.

Farmhand Joe jumped into the buggy and tore over to town like a bat out of hell to get the sheriff in the corner. The body was so badly butchered that it was hard for the coroner to describe. The man's head, arms, and legs from the knee down had been chopped off. The skull had a crack from the top to the forehead, and the body had shown signs of defense wounds. He had two cuts on his wrist, and his right fingers had been cut off, as if he'd raised his hand against someone swinging a sharp object. Clutched in his mangled hand was a tuft of short brown curly hair, presumably from his attacker.

Holy shit, that's gnarly. Oh, poor dude. When the victim's internal organs were sent to a lab in Chicago, they found that he had one and a half grains of strickenine in his stomach, and a shitload of arsenic. That's a scientific term. The strickenine alone would have been enough to kill multiple men. One investigator surmised that Bell poisoned his food

and while he was in the throes of an agonizing death, put him out of his misery with several bone splintering blows to the skull. After which, she dismembered him and dumped the body in a hole. Let's take a second, y'all, to talk about how vanishingly rare it is for a female killer to dismember a body. I mean, it is really rare. And the women who can do that tend to do it at least in part because they like it. At least, that's according to FBI profiler and all-around badass queen, Candace DeLong. If you're listening, Queen Candy, come on our show sometime, please.

Mm-hmm. Now, despite the terrible state of the body, Asla immediately recognized it as his brother Andrew. Not in Chicago, not in Norway, dumped in a refuse pit on the farm of his would-be beloved. At this point, Sheriff Smutzer started getting an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he asked Joe Maxen if there were any other fresh digs on the farm. There were. This time, they found what they were looking for only three feet down. And this time, there were multiple bodies, all cut into pieces. They had to move all of the parts to the nearby shed. In all, they ended up with four bodies, two adult males, one adult female, and one adolescent female.

The body parts were horribly decomposed, so much so that you couldn't really tell much from looking at them. The only identifiable feature was the long blonde hair on the teenage girl. It was, of course, Jenny, Belle's oldest daughter, who had been sent away two years before. And this, is heartbreaking. The day they found her body just happened to be her 18th birthday. Ugh. Yeah. Not what her mom would have wanted for her, I think, that day that she lay on her deathbed and entrusted her baby to Bell. Unsurprisingly, the press was all over the story. They flocked to Leport from all over the country and perched like vultures, pecking at any little snippet of info they could get. They even scored an interview with Ray Lamphir, who was still

cooling his heels in the county jail. He told him that he had noticed some strange. He told him that he had noticed some strange goings on at the Gunnus farm. He said Bell had sent him on errands to buy rat poison and chloroform, and he'd noticed that one of her cousins had left his trunk behind. He also said he was sure that the young woman's body on the farm was Jenny's. He told them, I never believed she was in California. I never heard of any letters coming from her. Okay, well, what the hell did you think happened to her then? Ever think of trying to find out, or were you just minding your own business against? Guy is the worst. We learned it in the last episode, Whitney. Snitches get stitches.

Yeah, that's true. Tourists descended upon the port as the news rolled in, too. Estimates placed the total crowd at 16,000 people, all eager to watch the show. I mean, we can't judge, can we? We're true crime nerds, too, and these folks didn't have the benefit of court TV like we do. And obviously, it was great for the local economy. I mean, vendors showed up selling peanuts and popcorn and ice cream and lemonade. It was an event. Some people sold postcards of the farm in the empty graves. There were even sales of bone fragments,

but those were, of course, found to be pig bones. Thank God. Now that we can judge people for. Unfortunately, though, this crush of looky-loos meant that the crime scene was a carnival, and there was no evidentiary integrity whatsoever. The search of the farm-turned cemetery continued. They quickly found another body buried in an abandoned privy vault, which, if you don't know, is where people buried, you know, poo and whatnot.

The skull showed signs of a deep cut. And in yet another grave, they found three more bodies and a dozen men's shoes. The bodies were all stored separately in burlap sacks with quick limes sprinkled over their faces to speed up decomposition. Why would she do that? Did she feel guilty? Or was she worried that someone might come looking for a loved one? Yeah, hell no, I don't think she felt guilty. I think she was just making sure people couldn't be easily identified on the off chance that somebody discovered the grave.

It really shows you the total lack of respect that she had for these guys. I mean, cut them up, destroyed their faces, put one of them in a privy. Ugh, just rough stuff. By the end of that first week, the body count was up to nine. Soon after, there were two more from yet another grave, a man and a woman. And rumors were swirling around about their origins. One of the rumors was that the men had been murdered by a Chicago serial killer and Bell had helped him get rid of the bodies.

Chicago's H.H. Holmes was pretty recent at this time, so I'm guessing that's where that one came from. Other people thought Bell was a member of some kind of crime family, maybe one of the infamous bloody benders, because, you know, a mere woman couldn't possibly have killed all these grown men. Right? It was a tough one for early 20th century folks to wrap their heads around. But, of course, in reality, a picture was forming for the Leport

police. Bell Gunnis lured men to her farm with the promise of an idyllic life, only to take their money and kill them in cold blood. It looked like most of the victims were either poisoned, like her first husband Mads, or hit with a sharp heavy object, like second hubby Peter. Unfortunately, between the advanced decomposition and the lack of available testing, we don't really have a clear picture of Bell's M.O. beyond that. Some potential suitors were reported to have been turned away when they didn't have enough money. What was Bell's lucky number? $1,000. Any less, you weren't worth Bell's time. She had standards, y'all. Yeah, she ain't risking the gallows for any less than that. And this is chilling. As news spread of the murders, dozens of families from all over the country

reached out to the investigators to let them know that their loved ones had taken off for Laporte to invest in some property and never had been heard of. from again. Most of those families would never get a firm answer about whether their sons or brothers were victims of Bell. We don't know for sure exactly how many people Bell murdered. We do know that she's estimated to have stolen about $47,000. That's $1.2 million in today's cash. Wow. We know that some victims brought more than $1,000, but that's still a minimum of 40 men, Bell murdered. The remains of 37 of those were eventually found on the farm.

The reason that she's only got 14 official kills to her name is that those are the ones we can identify. Those are the conservative estimates. What about the women they found? Well, there are a couple theories. The most convincing is that Bell ran some kind of human trafficking scam where she'd taken young single mothers, kill the woman, and then take the baby. babies to sell.

Oh, my God, that's awful. Yeah, remember how she had, like, a full-grown baby? Oh, yeah, yeah. That just showed up. Mm-hmm. Now, despite the adult female body found in the cellar with Bell's kids, the authorities soon found themselves inundated with reports of Bell sightings all over Indiana and Illinois.

People weren't buying that this bitch was really dead. Mm-hmm. Like, in a slasher movie, when you don't see the killer die, you know they're coming back. Mm-hmm. One druggist said that a woman matching Bell's description had tried to buy morphine from him about a week after the fire. She was spotted all over Chicago, too, but nobody seemed to be able to catch her. One woman was even arrested on suspicion of being Bell, but she was able to prove her identity.

Why were people so convinced she wasn't dead? Part of it can be attributed to the fact that her story is larger than life. Could she have really been taken down by a drunken little life like Ray? but another reason is that there's evidence for it. Before her funeral, the undertaker measured the remains, and accounting for the missing pieces, he found that when she was alive, the dead woman was about 5 foot 2, 130 pounds.

Now, Bell, if you recall, was 5 foot 8 and 280. That's a big difference. Yeah, that's a whole human being's difference in weight. That just makes no sense whatsoever. Even if you consider that, you know, fire might have, like, sucked some of the fluid out, that's not a hundred and fifty pounds worth of difference. So could Bella faked her own death?

Sacrifice some poor woman to be her stand in? Sheriff Smutzer wasn't having it. He needed the world to be convinced of Bell's death see because Ray Lamphir was still sitting in jail on his say-so. So he hired a gold miner to sift through the ashes of the farm, try and locate Bell's gold teeth. The fire, you see, hadn't burned hot enough to destroy porcelain or melt gold. Okay, so where we're going to?

her head then. All right, we're getting there. Cuddle down. Anyway, Joe Maxon was standing outside of the pit that used to be the gunness cellar on May 19th when the gold miner suddenly yelled out, I found him, I found the teeth. And then Joe saw him pull some dental bridgework

out of his pocket. The false teeth were surprisingly unblemished to have been burned in a house fire. But Bell's dentist IDed the bridgework as Bells. According to him, it would be impossible for somebody to pull the teeth out herself, even for an experienced dentist. Yeah. Well, when you say impossible, sir, I suspect you mean because it would

hurt like a bitch. But the thing is, people like Bell are surprisingly willing to maim themselves if it serves their purposes. We've seen that in all kinds of cases before, haven't we, Katie? Hell yeah. People have shot themselves, stabbed themselves, poisoned themselves, set themselves on fire. Yep. All to try to get away with murder. So I'm not convinced that Dennis knows what he's talking about. Me either. And remember, what did the druggist say she was buying a week after the fire? Morphine. Mm-hmm. Bet you'd be in a world a hurt if you'd just pulled out a few of your teeth. Yep. Right? Absolutely. But, hey, it was enough for the coroner to declare Bell dead. Again.

And two days later, a grand jury indicted Ray Lamb Fear on charges of arson and murder for Bell, Lucy, Myrtle, Philip, and Andrew Helgelian. That last murder charge came for a few reasons. One, Ray was there on the night Andrew died, based on his friend's testimony, and two, the hair clutched in Andrew's hand was short, dark, and curly, which matches Ray's hair, not Bell's. Now, we won't go too far into the details of the trial. If you want to know more, the last half of Harold Checkter's Hell's Princess covers the whole thing, and it is about as bonkers as you'd think. But the cliff notes are this. The defense tried to tell the jury that Bell planted a fake body, which explains why she didn't want her children in the basement, drug Joe Maxon, which is why he was so sleepy and groggy that night,

and then set the house on fire herself, or hired Ray to do it, which is why he was so eager to make sure the four inhabitants of the house were still alive. There's a lot of evidence that points this direction. First, the size of the body doesn't match Bell's description. Now, the prosecution said that that could be for various reasons, and their expert said the body did match Bell's description. It had just been severely damaged by the fire. Yeah, I don't buy it.

No. Second, the missing head. Prosecution said the head was clearly just incinerated by the fire, but there's some real question about that. To be fully reduced to ash, a body has to be burned at 1,500 to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit for three hours. And we can't know how hot the fire burned, but we do know that it burned for only two hours, which explained the burned extremities. So this one really is a toss-up.

We can't know the answer for sure, which pisses Katie off no end. It so does. But speaking of fires, the defense brought up Dr. Bo Boll to the stand, who said that in his opinion, the porcelain and gold of the teeth did not look like they'd undergone a fire. So, boom. And remember, Joe Maxen saw the miner pull the bridgework out of his pocket. It would be ideal if the state in the defense could ask him, right? But unfortunately, he was nowhere to be found. Just disappeared off the face of the planet. Did somebody give him that bridgework to find at the scene? There was, after all, a lot at stake in finding Bell's body. I mean, the public was panicky and angry. Of course, this is all speculation, but it's certainly, I think, in the realm of possibility. Despite all that, though, the jury found Ray Lamphir guilty of arson, but for some reason not guilty of the murders, which I think is weird, but okay.

He was sentenced to two to 21 years and fined five grand. Ray died in prison of tuberculosis less than a year after his conviction. So, such ends the story of Belle Gunnis. We'll never know for sure what became of her. What do you think, Katie? I 100% think she faked her own death, and I will tell you why. So first of all, we have the buying the morphine. I think that gold miner is suspicious as hell, especially the fact that he disappeared

before he could be questioned under oath about it and that he was pulling that out of his pocket. Like, why would you be pulling out of your pocket? That's just suspicious as hell. Yeah. But I think Bell set the entire thing up. I think that she planted the story about Ray stalking her. I think she was completely kind of priming the pump with that for weeks and weeks before this so that everybody would think like she's in danger.

Remember she specifically told somebody, he said he's going to burn my house down with me and the kids in it. And then this is exactly what happens later. Now, obviously, that could be because he did it. But again, he has an alibi. So we have to believe that this woman would lie for him. and, you know, we had to hand-wave that story, but it just doesn't seem like she would have. She was not somebody that wanted a lot of police scrutiny for various reasons.

And the idea that she would lie for this guy that she really didn't know that well, it's not like they were, you know, madly in love or anything. Like, I just don't think she would lie. I think he was probably actually with her that night. Yeah. And who else would do it, right? So, and then like you said, we have her not wanting the kids to go down into the cellar. And we've got body parts missing.

And then when they found the bodies in the gray, we've got body parts missing in some of the same ways. Like we had like, you know, from the knee down, leg missing and there were bodies in the graves that had that exact same mutilation, heads chopped off, that exact same mutilation. So to me, I just, I think she planned the whole damn thing. And I think she went off and had probably a very peaceful life with all her money. Yeah. So somewhere, who knows where and killed her kids in the process.

Uh-huh. As sacrificial lambs. I am delighted that we think she faked her death for various reasons. First of all, I agree with you. But those aren't the things that stood out to me. So I've got a few. First of all, who, like, oh, she just happened to update her will the day she dies. Which, by the way, when this episode releases, the day she died would only be a few days away.

So happy death day. Fucking Bell. Yes, Daybell. Second of all, the fire origin point was outside the cellar door. Yep. How could a mother holding her three children, allegedly, carry her children through the fire and then go to the hottest, oldest point of the fire and get down the stairs? Yeah, why would she go down the stairs to the cellar and trying to get out?

That makes absolutely no sense. No, it makes no sense at all. And then there's the final supper she had with her children where I think she drugged everyone to put them to sleep. Absolutely. Why have a feast? Nope. Yeah. Why have a like, why like go out of her way to like give everybody treats and cake and ice cream and buy them a toy?

And like that was the goodbye dinner. Yep. That's so creepy. She cared about her children to the extent that. Yeah. Right. And then, so we had to hand wave this too, is that. that she told witnesses that her kerosene tank was missing.

So she had to borrow one. But, like, that was to set up Ray, 100%. For sure. And she bought all that kerosene that day, along with all those groceries and the treats for the kids and everything. Come on, man. Finally. They did a DNA test on the woman's remains. Oh, that's right.

Inconclusive, y'all. Which just means that didn't match. Just tell us, scientists. we know she's out there she's still alive she's like 130 something years old 160 something years old she's still alive she's out there she's out there with elvis and tupac yeah yeah i completely i and usually i'm not a proponent of like the sexy theory you know because usually the sexy theory isn't the correct one and it's really but in this case i 100% believe she faked her death i don't think that was her a thousand probably shit i never

believe the sexy theory. I know. I know. I know. You're a huge skeptic. You're Sally, no fun zone. And yet we're like, we're locked step on this, y'all. We believe it. So you have to tell us if you agree, campers. And argue with us if you must. We think she faked it. She ripped, she stood in that kitchen with a pair of fricking pliers and ripped her bridge workout, y'all. That's the kind of bad bitch we're talking about. Yep. Yeah. Or the body count higher than Ted Bundy. The bridgework, by the way,

like, what if it wasn't even her ridge work? It just matched it. And like the sheriff put pressure on the dentist and the minor. Very possible. Very possible. It's Pepe Sylvia up in here, y'all. I'm already there. It's very possible. Because again, they weren't damaged by the fire. Come on. This was a fire that was allegedly so hot that it burned off limbs. Yeah. But the bridgework is pristine, not even charred a little bit? Come on. Case close. We solved it. We solved it. So, that was a wild one, right campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire.

And as always, we want to send a shout out to a few of our newest patrons. Thank you so, so much to Melissa, Justine, Cindy, Deney, and Cindy. We appreciate you all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you're missing out. Patrons of our show get every episode ad-free, at least a day early, sometimes more, plus an extra episode a month. And once you hit the $5 and up categories, you get even more cool stuff. A free sticker at $5, a rad enamel pin while supplies last at 10, virtual events with Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, come join us.

I'm going to be.