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In 1931, in Los Angeles, a 72-years old woman named
Esther Carlson was tried for poisoning a man named August Lindstrom.
But nobody knew much about this woman, just how evil she was.
Our story begins in 1900 with a 41-years old woman named Belle Sorenson.
She and her husband, Mads, had been married for six years when he died.
To make things worse, she had suffered the loss of two of her children
because of what doctors pointed as "a mysterious intestinal disease".
On November, 1901, she took the money of her life insurance and
her two still-alive daughters, Lucy and Myrtle,
and she moved to a farm in LaPorte, Indiana, USA.
In order to subsist, she started to breed and sell pigs.
Standing 6'0" and weighing over 200 pounds, Belle was physically strong.
Two months later, Belle got married again, this time, with a man named
Peter Gunness. But again, tragedy was a close companion to Belle.
In 1902, Peter was found dead. It seemed that a
butcher's grinder fell on him, instantly beheading him.
Belle was alone again. Days after Peter's death,
the widow began to look for a man: a man with money.
One of the gentlemen who answered Belle's ad was
Olaf Lindbloom, who, after a short visit to Gunness,
disappeared into thin air. Another interested was Andrew Hilgelien
who, like the others, was never seen again.
In 1907, her farm started to grow, so she hired a man
named Ray Lamphere to take care of the farm chores.
But at the following year, misfortune caught up with her again. An arson
broke out at Gunness' house, reaching the farm and several neighbor houses.
Several days later, a sheriff and Lamphere went to the burnt house
to look for Belle's body, but what they found instead shocked them.
They digged out a lot of corpses: one of Belle's fiancé, the body
of Jennie Olsen, Belle's foster daughter, the bodies of her two
little children. In total, they digged out near 10 corpses. But it doesn't
end there; they also found a headless woman and a false set of theet.
Everyone thought that the body and theet belonged to Gunness,
but nobody, not even her dentist, could guarantee it.
When the stomaches of the corpses were examined, large amounts
of strychnine and arsenic were found inside them, which means
she killed all of her husbands, all of her fiancés and all
of her children to get the money of their life insurances.
Eyewitnesses declared they saw Ray Lamphere running with
a gas gallon, escaping from the arson at Gunness' house.
In 1908, Lamphere was sent to prison and tried for starting
the fire, but he was never charged for the murders.
Just before he was sent to prison, he said: "Belle must
have loved me, because I'm the only man she never killed.
She said she'd marry me if I had life insurance.
The only thing I'm sure about is that she is still alive."
The Police spent the following 23 years looking for Belle, but they
never found her, which brings us back to 1931 with Esther Carlson.
Just before Esther was sentenced for ***, she died. People who were her neighbors in
LaPorte recognized her for her photo in the newspaper and identified her as Belle Gunness.
When the police registered her room, they found an old chest, inside of
which they found the pictures of Belle's daughters, Lucy and Myrtle.
It was estimated that Belle killed between 25 and 40 people in her lifetime.
It is said that most her victims' bodies ended up as
food for her beloved pigs. She was so evil, that she became a
legend in her town. In fact, in 1938 was composed a song about her.