Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 200. Belle Gunness - Butcher of Men

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200. Belle Gunness - Butcher of Men · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to the two hundred episode
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of Who Did What Now? The history podcast that is
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: not your history class with me, your host Katie Charlwood,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: History Harlot and reader of books. And yes, this is
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: an extra episode because with the month's plan, the month
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: is in it, you know, the next one was going
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to be about a dude, and I was like, let's
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: not do that, and so I wanted to talk about
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: someone who has been on my to do list since
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: since the get go, Like there's about I think eighty
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: people in events that I was just like, I need
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: to talk about, you know, and the one the only,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Bill Gunness is part of this because it's got everything.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: We've got cons, we've got schemes, we've got moidra, and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: we have a mystery. But before we get into that,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I have news. I have actual news. I am going
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: on tour now at two dates currently have been announced,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: which is Belfast and Los Angeles. And you might be
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: thinking those are two very different places, and you would
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: be correct, they're on different sides of the Atlantic. But
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: just so you know as well, at time of recording,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: a quarter of the tickets of the Belfast Show are gone,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: so if you want to see me in Belfast as
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: far as I know, it's my only North of Ireland
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: show so far. But yes, if you want to come
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: see me, I am going to be there now. But
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: it also means gonna move on away. You're making me
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: like bad. No, in all seriousness. If you go to
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the event page on my website who did wonnapod dot com,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: there is an option to let me know where you
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: want me to go. There's an option of adding your
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: email like in that form as well to be notified
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: of like when I am in your locale. So there's
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: like like forms for like Canada, US and Europe, so
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: depending on where you are. Like, I am securing dates
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: as we speak and they will be released when things
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: are locked in. So yeah, our links are all down
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: below and more dates will be added, so just keep
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: your eyes peeled and I am I'm so excited to
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: go on to it, like I am so excited, like
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I miss being on tour. Also, just in case you forgot,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I don't do the same show twice, Like it's never
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the same story, It's always always different. I'm never talking
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: about the same piece of history or the same person,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: like there can be overlaps sometimes, but it's never exactly
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the same. And basically like the Los Angeles Show won't
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: be the same as the Pittsburgh Show, which will be
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: different to the San Francisco Show. And obviously like Dublin, Belfast,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Goal Away, they're all gonna be they're all gonna be different. Okay,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Katie Plays.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I know it's your two hundred of the episode, but
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: quit your dabbl jabba in fact me, in fact you,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I will. But first we've got to get our source on.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Our sources are The Truth about Bell Guinness by Lillian
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: de Latour, Hell's Princess, The Mystery of Bell Gunness, Butcher
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: of Men by Harrold Scheckter America's fem Ftale, The Story
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: of Begun by Jane Simon Amerson. We also have Bell
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Gunness Lady Bluebeard by Jenny McAlpine and Iris Dixon. And
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: we have articles from contemporary articles from the Chicago Tribune,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, La Grande Evening Observer, and
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the Connersville Times. I'll sit in comfortably good, then let's begin.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: I am so excited to tell you about Hell's Bell
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: like the Mistress of Murder, Hell, the Butcher of Men,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Lady Bluebeard one missus Bell Gunness.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: But before I do content warning, I will be talking
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: about a lot of horrible stuff here, from violent crimes,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: m dumb miscarriage and fantaside and desecuation of a corpse. Now,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: if that sounds like it might be a bit much
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: for you, feel free to exit stage left and we'll
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: catch you next time. And now to Belle Sabel Gunnis
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: was born Brunhild, Paul's daughter Storseth in Silbu saw Torondela.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Why did I make it all French? There s Toronda
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Lag in Norway, in Norway. That's in Norway, and that
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: is on the eleventh of November eighteen fifty nine to
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Paul Peterson, a stonemason and tenant farmer and burret Oldstodder.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Now Brinnhild. She was the youngest of eight children, right
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, so she's she's the youngest to this couple.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: And we don't don't know much about like her childhood
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: and her schooling, but she's growing up on a cottle's farm, right,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: And she probably went to an all mus conn which
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: is a one room sort of primary elementary school. Well,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: she would have learned, you know, the three hours reading, writing, arithmetic,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: but she also would have had a very Lutheran like
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: religious I'm gonna say curriculum. So when she's fourteen, she
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: started working on neighboring farms to like earn some money,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: which is like the same age that she was confirmed
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: in the Church of Norway, which is a Lutheran church.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: So she's working on these farms. She's doing farmhand work,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: she's doing dairy farming, and this is hard work, Like
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: this is full on, very physical, very you know, laborious.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: It's very very hard work. Now, when she's seventeen, she
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: does leave this and she goes to work as a
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: domestic servant. Kiss It's very common. It's a very common
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: thing that they did, and it was part of it
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: for years and most families actually would have a servant
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: of some kind, but you had to like treat that
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: servant with respect. It was very much like a whole thing.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: So I think we talked on this. We touched on
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: it in the in the episode of Elizabeth Stride in
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the Five Canonical Victims of Jack the Ripper. I'm gonna say,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Charles the rubber is Charles. But servant work and domestic
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: work was very very typical of the ear so you
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: would go and you would get domestic work with another family. Okay,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: so this is where the rumor mill starts turning in
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: and Okay, according to research by Radford University, she marries
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: at seventeen, and she married a man whose name I
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: could not find, and allegedly she's pregnant and he beats
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: her so badly that she miscarries and then a month
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: later he's dead. Now I could not find any information,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: like any anything on this whatsoever. But apart from this
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: like one piece of research, and yeah, yeah, this feels
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: a little bit like that sort of justification explanation regarding
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: future actions. It's like, oh, well this happened. Now, Another
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: rumor goes about that if wealthy farmer gets her pregnant
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: and so that's why she has to leave. But like
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: she's working and she's trying to earn money, but she
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: never actually earns enough money to leave. Her sister, Elena
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: had actually left years before, had got married, and it
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: was Olena and her husband that actually funded Brinhild's exodus,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: shall we say, because there was a mass Norwegian exodus,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: you know, to the US, and so off she went,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: and like this is at twenty one years old, and
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: so she moves to the United States of America, to Chicago,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: where her sister Nelly has settled. Because Olena she now
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: goes by Nelly. Now, when brynhild arrives in the US,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: she goes through the immigration center at Castle Island and
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: she anglicizes her name to Bayla Peterson. So she moves
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: in with her sister and brother in law in Chicago,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: where she gets a job as a domestic servant because
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: she's already done it. That's something she can do. Okay, sidebar, Actually,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: you know how some people are like my family came
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: over on the Mayflower to just show like how far
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: back their roots go, usually as an excuse to be
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: at least a little bit racist. And also the way
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: some of these people are talking like the Mayflower was
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: as big as the Titanic, you know what I mean.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Like in that same vein, you know, you'll get people
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: who are like my anss just came through Ellis Island.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: Which okay, that's that's actually fairly recent historically, because before
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: that they would have gone through Castle Gardens, which is like, oh,
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Castle Garden, I keep wanting to like pluralize it.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: But they would have gone through Castle Garden, which is
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: like at the top of Manhattan, like in Battery Park.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: And so from eighteen fifty five to eighteen ninety, I
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: think maybe ninety two up to ninety two because Ellis
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Island is opened in ninety two, Like that is when
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: everyone would have gone through. They would have gone through
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: New York and they would have gone through Battery Park,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: right and right, Bella, She's in Chicago, which is fun
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: fact was a hub of immigrant communities. You had Irish,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: you had gentlemen, you had Italian, you had Scottish, Polish, Norwegian, Jewish,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: et cetera. And by eighteen ninety, ninety percent of the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: population of Chicago were born to foreign parents. Right, Like,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: that's it. So she's in Chicago, she's working as a
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: domestic selevant, which she did not enjoy, and then she
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: also gets a job later on as a butcher because
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: she grew up rural. Okay, she worked on farms and
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: she wasn't afraid of handling or chopping up a carcass.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: This may be something to consider later on. And like
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: initially her English, it's not great, but she picks it
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: up quickly. And then after three years of living in Chicago,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: she meets Mads. Did live Anton Sorenson, a Ned watchman
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: at a department store. Which department store, I don't know.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I couldn't find it. So Mads was also a Norwegian immigrant.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: They courted for a short while and then they married
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty four. Now I saw someone trying to
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: add like some spookaness to this by being like making
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: a big deal about the fact that Bella wore a
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: black dress to her wedding. Now why wedding dresses, they
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: weren't really a thing. Again, for a lot of history,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: women wore the best dress they owned, regardless of color,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and Queen Victoria popularized the white wedding dress when she
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: married Prince Albert no One. This was a way to
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: showcase like British lace and stuff, but also white dresses.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're wealthy, it doesn't matter if your
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: dress will get dirty, Like it shows that you're not
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: going to get dirty because you've got this beautiful white dress.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: It's not to do with virginity and purity. That's all bollocks.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: That's made up. That's like retroactive filling in the blanks,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And yeah, I'm no fashion historian,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: let's get that out there, but I don't really think
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: a German English queen is going to be inspiring fashion
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: trends for working class Norwegians of the eighteen hundreds. And okay,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: one more thing. The picture you see make the rounds
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: of Belgunnis is a portrait of her and her kids
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: from when she's in her forties. And oh oh, like
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: people aged differently back then. I mean, just look at
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: a year book from the nineteen eighties, Like every seventeen
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: year old looks like they're at least thirty five. But
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: if you look at her wedding portrait, she looks grand.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: She looks normal, right, I mean, she's not some hideous,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: hulking monster. Like the amount of articles I read they
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: were like she was huge, she was ugly. She was
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: nearly six foot tall. She was five seven five eight
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: tops right, Like, I don't know what to tell you,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: but five eight is not nearly six foot men on
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: dating apps. She was not some giant about to grind
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: bones to make her bread. I mean maybe, but she wasn't.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: But she was tall and she was strong, right, but
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: she wasn't some he repugnant beast. She was still fairly attractive,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: especially within the time period, you know, and the culture. Okay, sidebar,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back to the high thing. Lads, if
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: you're listening, Most women don't care about height. They don't
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: care about what you are, all right, just be honest
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: about it now. I know that I've personally dated men
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: from like five foot two to five or two and
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: a half and six five, and I don't I don't
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: give a shit. I don't give a shit or I
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: mean that being said, my ideal man is Roger Rabbit.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: So effectively, I just need someone to be at least
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: a boob height. And I'm good, you know what I mean.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: But I digress. Bella married Mads and the first decade
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: of their marriage is fairly uneventful. Then this marriage doesn't
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: produce children, at least not exactly. Let's keep that in mind.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: She absolutely dotes on her niece Olga and like Oga
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: would spend quite a lot of time with Mads and
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: and Bella like up to six weeks at a time, right.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Just that's that's over a month like that is that
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: is that like summertime thing? Is the child not in
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: school or are they also going to school? Well, also
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: in the care of Auntie Bella and Uncle Mad's like
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: she's there so much that Bella at one point just
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: goes to her sister Nelly and is like, can I
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: keep her? And being fairly reasonable, Nelly is like, no,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: absolutely not. And now this puts a bee and Bella's
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: bunnet and the sisters barely ever speak again. Now Here
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: she is childless and does not even have her niece anymore.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: And in eighteen ninety one, Luck smiles on Bella because
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: in the Norwegian community there was a terminally ill woman. Yeah,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: I said, Luck smelled on Bella. I didn't say it,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: you know, smelled and missus Olsen here. So she has
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: an eight month old baby girl, and Bella convinces the
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: dying woman to give her custody of baby Jenny Olson.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Now Jenny's dad isn't exactly interested in his daughter until
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: he remarries, because of course he does, but he tries
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to get custody of Jenny like again, not until after
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: he's remarried. Like the courts are basically you know, a
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: where have you been up until now? Right? And they
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: grant permanent custody to Bella, which I mean, okay, there
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: was a this is a type okay where women and
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: children were the property of men. So yeah, outsourcing the
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: rearing of your child until you got a replacement wife
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: didn't really put the ball like in your court, Like
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: that's what happened. And also the consensus was that Bella
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: absolutely like doated on this baby girl, like she looked
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: after her, like she showered her with love and affection,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: and she was just like spoiled like all that stuff.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: You know. She was being like a very like I'm
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: gonna say, intense mother, but also like a very overtly
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: caring mother, like at least from the outside. And so
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: now you have Mats Bella and baby Jenny, so they
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: have a proper little family. They should have been set
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: now right, like everything should be fine now, completely normal.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: But oh oh you sweet summer child. No. In eighteen
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: ninety four, Bella and mad Said saved up enough money
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: to set up their own business, which is the American dream.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Now they set up a store. Now, a lot of
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: reports will say that this is a candy store or
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a confectionery store, but it's more like a convenience store
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: or a newsagent's like it was on Grand Avenue and
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Edward Street. Store. It's like in a really good spot.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: And it sold papers and tobacco, like newspapers, not just
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: rolling papers, although it probably also sold rolling papers cigars.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: It also had confectionery and sweets and stationery like all
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: all the typical stuff that you get in your general store.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Right now, for whatever reasons, this did not do well right,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: long story short, within a year it was failing, floundering,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: even because like about a year after opening, it was
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: clear that the business was on its last legs. And
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: what do you know, danger, Malil Robinson. Danger If fire
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: breaks out in the store with Bella and three year
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: old Jenny inside, Bella ends up running out into the
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: street carrying Jenny in her arms, just screaming fire, fire,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: And while she's running around, the neighbors call the fire department,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: but it's it's too late. The store had just been destroyed.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: It was basically sindals and schid wood and ash. Now
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: the frame was still there, but everything inside was just gone.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Luckily for the Sorensons, their store was insured Nabella told
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: everyone that a lamp had exploded and started the fire,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: even though there was no evidence of that happening. The
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: insurance company said, yeah, seems legit. After the payout, the
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Sorences sold the store, like what was left of it anyway,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: back to the brother of the original owner, and they
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: moved out of the city center and into the bubs.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: So they settled in the small suburb of Austin, and
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: their family from there grew. Now we're not sure how
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: many children were biologically Mad's and Bella's, I mean, if
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: at all, because no neighbors ever were called seeing Bella pregnant,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: and also the math it's not quite mathing because she's
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: in her late thirties, and I mean, there is the
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: possibility of Irish twins. But between eighteen ninety six and
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: eighteen ninety eight, four children joined the family, Caroline, Myrtle, Axel,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: and Lucy. Caroline died at five months old in eighteen
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: ninety six and Axel at three months old in eighteen
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: ninety eight, both of acute colitis. Officially so acute colitis
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: is the inflammation of the large intestine, and it was
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: both a common and fatal illness and infants at the time,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and so their deaths didn't really raise any red flags.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Now again, also life expectancy. The way it was, children
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: died quite a lot, and Bella did have life insurance
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: policies on these children's and the companies paid out. Given
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: what happens later though, it is presumed that she may
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: have poisoned these children with Strick nine. If you have
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: listened to you know, series one of my other podcast,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Day Nightshade, you'll know by now that all roads lead
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: to strick nine, unlike over here where all roads lead
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: to dysentery. But yeah, the symptoms of Strick nine poisoning
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: can exhibit like those of acute colitis. And like again,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: it's it's not that unusual. Because about one hundred and
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: fifty infants pair one thousand born died in the first year.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: It was very very typical, you know. So another major
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: event in the Sore Ands and household happened in eighteen
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: ninety seven when Angus Ralston, a representative of the Yukon
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Mining and Trading Company, came knocking on their door looking
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: for prospectors to join the company and earn their fortune.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Bell this is amazing, He's all in right, but Mads
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: he's apprehensive, but she does sort of coax and convince
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: him to sign for a year's service April eighteen ninety
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: eight to eighteen ninety nine, the fust of April, and
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: I add all thios day of all things. But basically
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Angus comes in and he's like, yeah, you'll get this
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: really good wage, and you'll get a quarter of all
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: the profits made by any minds that are discovered by
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Mads during his one year service. So you're also getting
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: this like extra bit on top of you know, your
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: your actual wages. But wait, there's more, because the lady
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: of the house would be without a bread winever a
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: year up in the Yukon. The company would also provide
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Bela with a stipend and they would also get company
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: shells on top of this as well. But in order
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: to lock this in, they had to invest seven hundred
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: dollars up front, which is what in today's money like
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: nearly twenty k I think. And basically the seven hundred
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: dollars was this promisory note and they had to have
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: their house as collateral, and this money was supposed to
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: cover like supplies and like tenancy and stuff up there
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: in the Yukon. Now, the couple only clocked that it
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: was a scam when the transport that was supposed to
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: take Mads out west did not show up. And they
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: haven't heard anything. There's no news, and so they go
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: to their lawyer. Right, they honored the scam and they
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: have to go to court to remove the responsibility for
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: the promisory note, because what Angus done is he had,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: you know, sold the promisory note in so basic they
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: could have lost their house. Now that their lawyer does
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: like some proper digging. It's like his company doesn't have
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: all this minds, It doesn't really have anything and doesn't
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: really exist. It's like it's just like a big, massive scam.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: And I think a good rule of thumb is for
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: anything is if it sounds too good to be true,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: then it probably is right. Just err on the side
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: of caution with everything in life. So Mad's he ends
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: up going back to work at the department store, and
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: so he's there for another while and then any crazy
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: random happenstance, the Sorenson's home burned down in nineteen hundred
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: in a case of definitely not arson, and the insurance
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: company just paid out again. I think it was like
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: pre the nineteen fifties and it's nineteen fifty four fifty seven,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: there was like the insurance companies were just like, yeah,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: seems right, seems legit. There you go, here's your money.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: And now they've gone the complete opposite way where they're like, oh,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: you've done everything right, we're gonna make a loophole to
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: make sure we don't pay you. Now, I say, the
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: house burnt down, right, the house didn't actually burn down,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the contents got destroyed, but you know, luckily the insurance
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: covered that. Now three months later, I mean, they're just
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: unlucky because tragedy strikes again. On the thirtieth of July
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: nineteen hundred, Matt comes home from work suffering from a cold,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: and he's got this like massive headache and like proper bad.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: It's a duce. So Bella, being a beautiful and considerate wife,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: gave him a dose of quinine or quinine powder, i
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: should say, and sent him off to bed. So she's
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: going a bitter day. She makes the dinner and when
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: she goes up to you know, rouse him for dinner,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: she finds him fully clothed, laying upon the bed lifeless.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Doctor J C. Miller, the family physician, was called, and
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: the cause of death was cerebral hemorrhage. Now doctor Miller like,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: he is concerned that the pharmacist may have made a
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: mistake and swapped over like medication and possibly accidentally given
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: mad's morphine instead of the quinine. Right, And so he's like, hey,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: can I check that little payper? Can I check the
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: package I want to see just in case? And she's like, oh, dear,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: I already got rid of it because I gave it
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: to him and then got rid of it because I
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: had no reason to keep it at all. No evidence here,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Oh dear, whips a dais a. It was incredibly fortuitous
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: for Bell that her husband died on that exact day
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: because it was the last day of one policy with
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: one company and the first day of a new policy
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: with another company. Again seems legit. So both policies paid out,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: so two thousand dollars from one and three thousand from
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: the other. Now in today's money, that is over one
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Now, as a wealthy widow,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: she needed a more suitable home for her and her children,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: and so she's searching. She's researching. She's looking for somewhere
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: good to go. And then in November nineteen oh one,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: she upped sticks and moved to Altic House, a thirteen
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: room farmhouse with a forty eight acre plot in Laporte County, Indiana.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Fun fact that house was once a brothel. New neighborhood,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: new life, new name. So she now introduced herself as Belle.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: So she took away the A from the end. So
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: she gets there to Laporte. It's got old tracks of
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: land and Belle was going to utilize it and start
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: setting up a farm. Enter Peter Gunness. He had known
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Belle years back and had boarded with her and Mad's
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: for a bit. He had since returned to Norway, then
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: returned back to the US to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where his
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: brother lived. He got married and had two kids, Swan
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: heeled in eighteen ninety seven, and then a second daughter
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: in nineteen oh one, whose wife had died during childbirth.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Peter was not a widow from long because he married
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Bell on the first of April nineteen oh two. Now
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: he married her and he brings his two kids and
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: he moves in with Bell right like just there you go.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Now he is described as like this viking looking fella.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: He's like hunky, blonde, blue eye. And this is often
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: used as a sort of juxtapossession to like Bell because
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, they're such an odd couple, because she's like, oh,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: the goblin under the bridge, you know, that's a troll.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: The troll under the bridge, like trying to get the
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: bullygoats gruff, and he's just like this adonis. But yeah, marriage,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: especially back then, wasn't really about love. That was convenience
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of the time, you know, because women couldn't
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: own anything and so they needed security and men I
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: don't know couldn't cook, I guess, and so and so, yeah,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: he says this, you know, she's got land in a
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: thirteen room house and all this stuff, and he's linking
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: sweet convenient. So yeah, yeah, so they have their old
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: time in marriage and five days, five days after their nuptials,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: his seven month old daughter died, officially of edema of
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: the lungs. Now. I also could not find the name
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: of child number two. Like it didn't it did not
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: come up. But yeah, the couple were only married eight
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: months when another tragedy would befall them. Peter had an
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: unfortunate accident with a sausage grinder, twelve year old Jenny
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: armed with a poker, like a stove poker or a
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: fire iron, I think you call it. She's banging on
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: the door of their nearest neighbors, like Swan Nicholson and
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: his family. So she's huffing and puffing about how Papa
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: burnt himself. The men race over with Jenny to find
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Belle hysterical in the kitchen with a bloody Peter laying
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: on the kitchen floor in just his night shirt. One
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: of the men left and returned with doctor Bold the
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: county corner. Now Ball observed that Peter had a broken nose,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: a wind on the back of his head, and he's like, hey,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: this is suspicious. So he's like, Bell, what the hell
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: prey to tell? Would have card here? Okay? So she
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: said that he'd gone to the kitchen to get his
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: shoes that were warming by the stove. Then, in a
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: final destination moment, as he bent down to pick up
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: the toasty shoes, the sausage grinder fell from the top shelf,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: hitting him on the back of his head, and as
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: he's sort of falling down, he knocks over a bowl
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: of hot brine that had been on the counter, which
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: scalded his neck. So basically he's leaning over drized grab
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: his shoes. As he's leaning over, the sausage grinder falls
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: from the top shelf of its own a card and
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: he gets struck. And then as he is like wobbling,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: his arm flails and he bangs against the ball and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: as he's falling to the ground, the ball of brine
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: like scolds his neck. Now Albert Swan its Swan. Nicholson's
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: son was like, hey, anyone think this looks like mother like?
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: And his dad is shut me down. He's like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, okay,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: don't do this because it might be in trouble for
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: missus Guinness. Now I don't I don't want to. I
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: don't want to be like snitches get stitches. But also
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: he's just like, careful she did this to him, what
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: if he did this to you? But also is this
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: is this like oh, we don't want, you know, the
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: bell to come and get you next, or is this like, oh,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: this was a domestic dispute, let's not get involved in this.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Body Like, it feels like it could be either way,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: you know, doctor Bull carried out the post mortem and
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: there were no burn marks or scolds on Peter Gunnis's body.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: The nose was broken and lacerated as if it had
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: received severe blows, and the back of the head had
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: a deeper wound, and he recorded the cause of death
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: is shock plus pressure caused by the fracture. Naturally, he's thinking, oh,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: my goodness, Peter came down with a severe case of
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: the MUDs, and so he calls for an inquest into
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: the death of Peter Gunnis, which was held at the
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: house right at Altic House. Basically, it's reported as mysterious
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: and suspicious, but Bell herself is never implicated. Like Bill
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: and Jenny are. You know, they're both testifying, and their
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: statements are so close in a way, it's almost as
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: if they're rehearsed. But also they're very contradictory, like like
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Jenny manages to be aware of events that she should
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: never known about because she was supposed to be asleep
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: and she wouldn't have seen. But you know, yeah, so
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's like, it's it's not it's not optimum. However,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: in the end, Peter's death was officially classed as accidental
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: death by sausage grinder. So the inquest was done and
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Belle was in the clear, but people were suspicious, none
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: more so than Peter's brother Gus. Gus was curious to
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: see if Peter's life insurance policy had paid out to
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Peter's daughter's healed Bell informed him that Peter had changed
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: it instead of investing in a mining company. Angus, roastn't
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: eat your heart out, this is this is so sneaky,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: right Naturally, he asks to see the shells and Belle's like,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I don't have access to them right now now and dinner,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: you know. Gus says to her, it's like, sure, you
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: don't have it, and she's like, no, it's somewhere I
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: don't know where. And she's like, hey, Gus, it would
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: be so nice for you to stay at the farm
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: with us, you know, and be with us and the
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: children and help out. Wouldn't you mind staying for a while.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: The very next morning, Gus and Swanhild had scarpered because
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: his spidy senses were tingling, and in the middle of
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: the night, Uncle Gus said fuck this for a game
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: of soldiers, grabbed his niece and headed back to Minneapolis.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Without the insurance policy, because he's like, I don't like
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: the sound of this, and I quite like my niece
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: being alive. So Bell continued working on her farm and
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: her neighbors they did not get along, so her cows
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: would wander into a neighbor's land so much that like
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: he penned them in and charge to a dollar for
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: their return, because like, girl, just build a fence. I
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: guess now when she finds his cows on the side
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: of the road, she heard them into her land and
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: charges him a dollar. And when he tries to open
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the gate, Bell told Jenny to go get her revolver.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Our neighbors also thought that she was a bit of
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: an oddfish while taking on the farm chores herself after
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Peter died, because as you know, all chores are gendered,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: even if you live alone. If there isn't a man
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: to take out the rubbish in my house, he just
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: sits there stewing for days a week saving. But now
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: she's working on the farm. She's going to livestock auctions
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: by herself, and she's deadlifting pigs into hall wagon. But
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: eventually the farm was just too much for her to
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: manage on her own, so she puts an advert out
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: in a Norwegian language newspaper, The Scandinavian, basically saying that
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: she's seeking a farm hand. Oh yeah, at one point
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: during this like time, she acquires a baby boy, right,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: he's just there on the house one day. This is Philip.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Philip is just there. He's clean, he's bathed, like Jenny.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: She's just like, mom, got a baby. And this midwife
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: is like, I'm sorry, what what do you mean she
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: got a baby? And she knows that, you know, Bell's
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: over there on her own and she rushes over and
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: she sees like Belle just working outside with this like
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: fresh clean baby, and she's like, girl, you need to rest.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: And she's like, ah, back in the old country, nobody
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: rests after getting a baby. And it's like, where did
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: you get the baby from? Belle? Whose baby is this?
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: But yes, Belle has been an advertisement looking for farm hands.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Thirty year old all Off Limbo answered the ad. He
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: was a farm laborer from Indiana and thought this was
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the deal of a lifetime. He moved on to the
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: farm with all of his possessions and his life savings.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: In to he writes to his parents in Norway about
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: how he's met his future wife, a wealthy widow with property.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Not only is he writing home about it, he is
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: blethering in the pub about how he and Belle were
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: engaged a couple days after telling anyone and everyone after
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: a few drinks, well, Olaf just wasn't around anymore. And
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: when a loud person disappears, suddenly people notice and neighbor
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Chris Christopherson is like, hey, where's Olaf, and Bell tells
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: him that, oh, he went to the World's Fair in
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Saint Louis to buy some land. Meanwhile, she tells Swan
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Nicholson that Olaf returned to Norway, and when his parents
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: hadn't heard from him in a while, they write to
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Belle asking where she where he is and she's like,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: somewhere else. But with all Af gone a position was
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: available and it was soon filled by Henry Gerholdt in
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: April nineteen o five. Henry also writes home to Norway,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: telling his family how he's living with the kind woman
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: on a beautiful farm and he's treated like one of
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: the family. But then he too disappears like Bell is
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: just having the worst luck with farm hands. Chris Kasdorferson,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: he inquires after Henry and Bell says that he's gone
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: to Chicago, but he lays without his good coat, and
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Bell happened to be wearing it, because like, if you're
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: gonna go, if you're gonna go to like a town city,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: which I have been told by many people, is all
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: of the weathers, you want to have your coat. Okay.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: So now Belle is looking for the next step in
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: her life, and so she puts a new ad in
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: the classifieds. Comely widow who owns a large farm in
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: one of the finest districts of Laporte County, Indiana, desires
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: to make the acquaintance of a gentleman equally well provided
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: with a view of joining fortunes. No replies considered unless
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: sender is willing to follow answer with personal visit. Triflers
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: need not apply. It was signed B. G. And the
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: ad went local and international. And then Belle just sat
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: back and waited to say if any suitors would respond,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: and oh did they? The postmaster would bring up that
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Bell received about eight to ten letters per day and
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: they were from all over the US. And so she
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: was reading through she was, you know, swiping left or right,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: finding the right person. And one such suitor was Andrew Hellelian,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: a forty nine year old Norwegian farmer from South Dakota.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Andrew was interesting. He had a past. He had spent
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: time in prison for robbing a post office and then
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: in an attempt to get rid of the evidence, he
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: bumped it down like okay, they both like crime, they
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: both like arson. I mean, you'd think things would go well,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: but this was twelve years before, and he was a
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: new man, and so he and Bell corresponded in Norwegian
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: for over a year. I think it was close to
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: eighteen months, right, They sent each other I think seventy
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: five letters or so, and it's all in Norwegian. The
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: spelling is terrible, but the best translations. We have all
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: of the letters that Bell sent him. We do not
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: know what his response as well, but these letters, a
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: lot of them are like come look at my big
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: fancy farm. And then there's a bunch of like love
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: bombing stuff and more things. And we're going to get
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: into that later because meanwhile, Bell Guinness did hire or
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: labor her for her farm, Emil Greening, and so he
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: witnessed I'm gonna call it a conveyer belt of men
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: arriving on Belle's doorstep to prove themselves worthy of her.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Bell referred to these men as cousins. I mean they're
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: all Norwegian, right, so she's like, hey, or I mean
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: they're all Scandinavian at least, so they just speak in
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: her region. And so these cousins would stay in her
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: room with her. Now, these cousins never stayed for long
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: and often left behind their trunks and other belongings. I
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: think there was one worker who was like, there was
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: just a room of trunks, just so many trunks. In June, Jenny,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: who was now a beautiful sixteen year old, told everyone
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: that she was going to California for college, and so,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: you know, people want to say goodbye, but she leaves
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: abruptly and no one ever hears from her again. And
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: by June the following year, Emil green Egg he quits
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: his job and moves away, and he is replaced by
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Ray Lamfair. Ray's father had been, you know, very prominent
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: in the area. He was a school teacher, a politician,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: and justice of the peace. But he was fond of
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: a drink and basically pissed away his fortune and his reputation.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Ray was also fond of a drink and a gamble
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: and spending time with ladies of the night. Now, when
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: he wasn't boozing right, when he was dry, he was
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: like a really talented carpenter. But the moment he's got
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: some boozing, um, it's not great. So Ray, after moving
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: into Altic house, was bumping his gums about how he
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: and Belle were getting down right and that she was
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: a hell cat in the sack like he was talking
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: about like how they were like boinking. Now, the affair
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: fizzled out by the time that Andrew Helgellian showed up. Yes,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: they had been riding that long, so she told Andrew
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: to keep their relationship on the down law and to
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: not let anyone know that he was coming. She's like,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: I want to tell people after. I want this to
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: just be like about us. It's a secret, but it's
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: like a surprise. You know, it's gonna be like really fun,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: but don't tell anybody. And also sell all your stuff,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: don't leave your money behind. Come with me and sew
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: your money into your underwear so that nobody knows it's there.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Andrew did kill his brother asshole that he was going
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: away for a week. Now he's like I'm ive a week,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: but I'll be back. And so he shows up in
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: the port on the third of January nineteen oh eight.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: So may be wondering, like the conveyor bit of men
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: that were coming into the house. Now, not everybody who
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: like visited or not everyone made it to the first stage.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: And then people who did make it through the first
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: aage and they visited her, if they didn't have like
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: one thousand dollars savings, then they were tossed. They weren't
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: like worth her time. So like having a little bit
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: less money saved of you people. The back to Andrew.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: So when Andrew comes over, Ray was relegated out to
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: the barn. So there's a room in the barn and
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: he's out there. And Andrew gets Ray's room. Now it's
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: a thirteen room house. Are you trying to tell me
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: you couldn't have a room for Ray in the thirteen
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: room house? No, okay. So she also warns Ray not
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: to speak to Andrew. Now this is all according to Ray,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: by the way, like we don't have Bell's side of
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: this for reasons. So three days after Andrew shows up
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: there the couple Bell and Andrew. They go to the
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: bank to cash his certificates of deposit from his south
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: to go to bank.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: The teller tells them it's going to take like five
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: days to cash it because they need to like send
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: the stuff to the other bank for approval and then
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: for the money to get to them. And Andrew's like okay, dokey,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: and Belle she's pissed, like she went off on a
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: full on Karen rant, like she's demanding the money now,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: and the bank's just like, no, we don't have it.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: So they come back on the fourteenth, so over five
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: days because Andrew had been feeling ill, they took the
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: deposit of two thousand, eight hundred and thirty nine dollars,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: which in today's money it's approximately seventy five thousand dollars.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Then it was all good and they left happily. Ever
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: after bat no no no, So while the tailor's counting
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: the money, they're like, hey, so Godny plans what you're doing,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: and like Andrew is just responding with small talk as
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: one does in the bank, and Bell is just like
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: it's none of your business, like absolutely, like mind your
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: own beeswax, sir. Later that night, Bell sends Railway to
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Chicago to meet with a man about a horse, her
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: cousin John, and that if for whatever reason, she says
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: to him, if John doesn't make the meeting, just stay
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: in Chicago overnight and meet him first thing in the morning.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: So when he gets there, he gets to designated.
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: Location in Chicago and John doesn't show up, He's like, Okay,
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: you know what, I don't want to stay overnight in Chicago.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: It's early enough. I'll get back now. Ray says this
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: as a sort of Oh, I'm gonna go check on things.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: It's gonna go back. And but Ray tells his friend,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: He's like, I want to say what the broad is
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: up to, Like she's up to something, and I want
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: to figure it out. And so right, he gets back
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: to the farm around nine pm, and huh, what do
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: you know? Andrew is gone, mysteriously gone, like who would
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: do such a thing. And a few weeks later something
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: goes awry an altic house. Now Ray and Belle they
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: seem to have some kind of set to Now I
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: don't know whether like he quit or she fired him,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: but his employment ceased.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: And.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Right, whom's to say how it went about? But so
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: he storms off. Third of February nineteen o eight and
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: goes to his attorney, and so his attorney tells him
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: that he has to go back to the farm to
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: get his back pay and his stuff and to threaten
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: to sue Bell, which okay, okay, clearly this man does
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: not know who Belle is, because that's not a good idea.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: But Ray's like, mother didn't raise no fool. So he
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: goes back there and Bell scares him off with a pistol,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: like she brandishes a pistol at him, and she's like,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: I will shoot you. So she ends up writing to
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: the sheriff about reharrassing her and her family, reporting that
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: he's skulking around the land, and he is actually kids.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: What he would do is he would get drunk and
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: then he would go and like trespass, and so he
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: ends up being arrested in March and plades guilty to trespassing. Meanwhile,
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: in South Dakota, Andrew's brother asked that he's worried, and
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: he's like his brother was supposed to come back. It's
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: been a while, and so he goes into his cabin
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: and like he didn't get rid of all this stuff,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: like he still had, you know, a bank account. He
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: still had his livestock, like they were all still there,
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: and he's like, this is weird, right, So he goes
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: into the cabin and he goes to search for clues,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: you know, like Scooby Doo, and off he goes and
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: he finds this big pile of letters and so this
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: abundance of letters to Bell, and so he writes to
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: Bell and he's like, where's my brother? And Belle's like, yeah,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: I'd like to know that too. She tells him that
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: Andrew stopped by on the way, on the way to
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: find another brother they had. He was some kind of
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: gamble and he was off to find him, right, and
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: then he says he was in Chicago and was planning
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: to return to Norway. So the story kind of switches
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: and changes, right, and she's like, he's was here like
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit, but not much, not really, And so
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: asked the asspell to send on like this letter that
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: his brother wrote saying that he's in Chicago, so that
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: he could read him himself, but alas she could not
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: because the letter had been stolen, those dang rotten letter thieves.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: In fairness, she actually says that Ray lamfair like broke
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: into the house and stole his letter for reasons. Now,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: Ray did have a habit of getting drunk and trespassing
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: onto the Gunnis farm, and she tries to get him
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: declared insane, but his doctor is doctor Ball, who's like, no,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: he's fine. He's drunk, but he's fine. And on the
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: fifteenth of April, Ray was on trial for all of
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: the trespassing malarkey and his lawyer just goes hell for
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: leather against Bell. So she's on the stand and he
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: is just railroad in about the deaths of her husband's
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: and their life insurance payouts. Like he is so aggressive
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: and in her face that the judge is like banging
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: the gavel and is like, sir, no, that's a bit much.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: So the result is Ray ends up being found guilty
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: and is charged like the court costs plus five dollars.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: Less than a week later, Ray is arrested for trespassing,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: and Belle receives another letter from Asla saying that he's
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: coming to Laporte to try and track down Andrew. So
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: Belle said, of course she's happy to help in any
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: way she can. And then as she's going out and
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: about John her day, she's telling anyone and everyone who listen,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: that Ray had been threatening her for some time, that
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: he had gotten really jealous when Andrew showed up, and
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: that she was very worried about what he would do
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: to her and her children. On the twenty seventh of April,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: she meets with her solicitor, like her lawyer, and she
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: updates her will and testament because she's so scared of Ray,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: that she's worried something's going to happen, and in the
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: event of her death, all of her money and her
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: property should go to her children. Myrtle, Lucy, and Philip.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: Notice anyone missing from this list? What about Jenny? Where's Jenny?
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: If the children were deceased, the entire estate would go
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: to the Norwegian Children's Home of Chicago. So this same day,
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: the children, you know, they go into school and they're
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: really upset, and their teachers, like you guys, were like
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: like upset so much that even in a time of
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: corporal punishment, that they're like something's wrong, and you know,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: they're crying. They were playing and they had gone to
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: like play in the cellar and they're forbidden from enter
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: the cellar, but they were kids and they were going
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: to go in the cellar anyway, and Belle catches them
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: going into the cellar, drags them out, and then beats
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: the everlasting shit out of them. Right, So these kids
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: are just very upset. They're just you know, emotions on high. Meanwhile,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: Bell goes to her bank and she gets her will
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: and she puts it in her safe deposit box, and
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: she also deposits seven hundred and thirty dollars. She stops
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: off at the grocery store to get treats for the children,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: some sweets, a cake, and a toy train. She also
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: purchased a fuck ton of groceries and two gallons of kerosene.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: That's just over three point seven litels for those of
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: you who used the metric system. While she's shopping, rail
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Amfair shows up and he's doing his shopping. Neither one
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: acknowledges the other. But Ray followed her outside and watched
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: her ride away in her wagon, and you know, a
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: person in the tail in the shop. It's just like, Okay,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: that's weird, especially because everything that's been going around about him.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: So that evening raised replacement Joseph Maxon. He had dinner
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: with the family and he said it was much larger
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: than usual. It was basically a feast, and so by
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: eight thirty pm he is heading to bed. He is
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: so tired, like unusually so, and so he's decided to
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: hit the hay all while the family are playing after dinner.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: So they're like playing with the train and stuff and
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: they're just having a good time, and he's just like,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: that's sweet, I'm off to bed. So he goes in,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: he lays down, he goes to sleep. Joe wakes up
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: around four in the morning and he's drowsy as hell,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: and it fust He thinks that Missus Guinness is bundling
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: the breakfast. Then he realizes his room is full of smoke.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Joe leaps out of bed and throws on some bottoms
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: because nobody needs to be done or ducking it when
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: there's a fire. He looks out his window and sees
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: that the house is a blaze. So he tries to
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: call out to Missus Gunnis and the children, but the
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: smoke is so thick, and so he grabs what he
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: can so like just personal items of necessities, and leaps
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: out of the room just to see the roof collapse
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: in the very room he had just been sleeping in.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Ella Clifford had gotten up to make her husband breakfast
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: when she saw the smoke and flames coming from the
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: altic house. So she sees this happened. She alerts her husband,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: her son, and her brother in law, who all rush
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: over to see Joe hacking at the front door with
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: an axe trying to reach the gunnesses. The men prop
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: laddle next to the house just to see if they
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: can see into any of the rooms with the way
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: that everything is coming down, and so they get on
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: top and they're looking in the children's bedroom, but they
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: don't see anything. So Joe he leaves to get the
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: sheriff and he returns around five am with the volunteer
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: fire department and the sheriff in to but you know,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: they try and do like a bucket chain, but there's
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: nothing they can do at this point. They manage to
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: get things under control, and you know, but the house
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: is the house is burnt down by the afternoon, when
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: the home you know, was basically walls and ash. They
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: started to inspect the area and they saw something unusual.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: It was as if the fire had started deliberately, and
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: it was started at the cellar door and the sheriff.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: He immediately thinks of ring Lamphil. Back in the remains
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: of the house. The place was searched for anything anyone,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: and in the southeast corner of the cellar were four bodies,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: three children and one adult. The adult body was covering
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: the children, all bodies blackened, and the adult presumably bell
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: bones protruded through the skin. Her right arm was gone,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: her left foot was gone, her right leg was gone
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: up to the knee, and her left forearm it was missing,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: so like parts of the body are missing. Now Initially
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: they say that they're burned off, and then it's kind
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: of they were burned, they were chopped, so on and
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: so forth. And the worst part of all this body
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: of this adult woman and the cellar, it was missing
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: ahead our internal organs. They didn't really show signs of damage,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: especially for the way the rest of the body had
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: been charred. Ray was picked up by the cops, like
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: at his work. Two deputies went over and the first
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: thing he says to them was did the lady and
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: the kids get out of the fire. Okay, they're like,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: how did you know about the fire? And he says
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: that he saw it, but he didn't go to do
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: anything about it because it was none of his business.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: And also he thought I'd get blamed, which fair, but
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: also there's kids in that house, Sir. Upon interrogation, Ray said,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: you know, the way he's needed to alert anyone was
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: actually because he had spent the night with seventy year
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: old Elizabeth Smith. Now, maybe he does have mummy issues anyway, No,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Smith, she's seventy. But the reason he doesn't want
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: people to know is because Elizabeth is black. Like there's
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: reports of Elizabeth being like incredibly beautiful and that her
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: lovers were not just men with black faces, like that
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: is an actual, actual description, because she's so hot she
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: superceeds racial bias. But yeah, he didn't want people to
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: know that he was with her. Now, she says that,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: you know, he had told her her to wake him
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: up around about three point thirty, but it was closer
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: to four when he actually wakes up because his alarm
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: didn't go off or something and she has to wake
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: him up. But yeah, So the initial assumption is that
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: the head was burnt off, but a pouse mortem examination
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: showed that it had been removed before death. So basically,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: the newspapers are putting out all these stories about like
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: how cereblaze women protects children, all this stuff, and Belle's sister, Nelly,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: Jenny's sister, miss Orlanda and asked La Hell Gillian all
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: make their way to Laporte. So Nelly is there to
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: you know, to make sure everyone gets a burial, to
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: sort out the estate. And Miss Landa she's as far
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: as she's concerned. She thinks Jenny's going to be returning back,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: like from California, and so she's like looking over the
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: will and being like, hey, why is Jenny not on this.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: So they're biological siblings, but they hadn't really spent time together.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: They kept him correspondence, but she hadn't heard anything for
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: a while. But when she finds out that, you know,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: her sister's adopted mother dies and that there's a fire
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: in the house, she's like, well, I should be there,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: you know. And Asla well, on the third of May,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: Asla arrives at the ruins and he joins Joseph Maxon
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: and neighbor Daniel Huxton to sift through the ash and
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: rubble and they'll hope he'd find something, see John Dan.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: They are trying to see if they can find the
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: head right, and as He's like, he's got a bad
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: feeling about this. I Asla He's really worried, and he's
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: convinced that Andrew's dead. He thinks something fishy's gone on.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: And so he asks Joe of any plots and been
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: like dug on the ran land recently, and Joe's they
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: often buried like rubbish over by, like the pig pin
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: or the privy pit, like things like that, And so
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Askeda's like, take me there. So they go out there
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: and start digging, and by the time they hit three
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: four foot down, the stench of rot and decay filled
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: the air, the stench of death, a smell so unforgettable,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: because this wasn't just marrow tins and old fish. This
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: was much worse. Wrapped in a burl lapsack was a
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: decomposing body. They ended up exhuming it and taking it
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: into the barn, and Joe rushed into town to get
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: the sheriff and the corner. The body had been dismembered, head, shins,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: arms all chopped off. His head had a crack in
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: the skull, the wrists were cut and the fingers were
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: also dismembered. The corner also checks the context of the stomach.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: And there was one and a half grains of strick
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: nine and when I believe it was the technical term here,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: a fuck ton of arsenic. So in the ninth century,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: drugs were plentiful, like they're they're everywhere poisons kind of
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: in everything. There's poison everywhere, you know, our sneaks everywhere. Goodness,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: Stricken nine was still used in rat poison and things
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: like that. And so Joe's like, oh, I mean, I've
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: bought rat poison every now and again. And even Ray
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I've gone out and purchased rat poison,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: because of course you do. It's the farm. You get
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: to get rid of the rats, you know. So the
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: sheriff asks Joe if more pets had been dug in.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: Joe's like probably, and so they just start digging. And
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: so they're digging all around, like the privy pits and
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: the pig pen and they find a selection of dismmbled
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: body parts and limbs, torsos. There were like sacks of bones,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: rotten clothes, and by the afternoon the coroner believed to
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: have the bodies of two men, one woman, and one
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: adolescent girl. Now the others were hard to identify.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: But.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: The blonde, matted hair of the teenager was recognized by
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: anyone who knew the Goodness family. This was very clearly
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: Jenny and her body had been discovered on what would
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: have been her eighteenth birthday. By the sixth of May,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: the remains of nine bodies had been uncovered, along with
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: pairs upon pairs of men's shoes, and yet all of
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: the trunks had been kept inside. I mean, they were
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: all burnt cinders now, but like, you couldn't have burnt
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: the shoes anyway. Sheriff's had Ray in prison and he
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: is convinced that he set the fire, and he's trying
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: to shut down the rumor that Bell is alive because
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: the newspapers are like, ooh, what if she escaped. Here
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: is a headless body, and there's especially now that all
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: of these bodies are being uncovered, they're like, oh, what
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: if the serial killer escaped? And one newspaper actually puts
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: out like, oh, careful being a tall ner waiting woman
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: at this time, danger, danger, because you might get arrested.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: So they have to lock down the crime scene, which
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: they don't do because once it hits the newspaper, and
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: it just shows you the obsession with true crime goes
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: way back, right, it goes way back. And so over
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: sixteen thousand people travel in to see the murder farm. Right,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: they're like selling souvenirs, there's ice cream, They're having picnics
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: where there could be remains underneath, right, Like, they lock
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: it down on the eleventh and they bring in Lewis Schultz,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: a veteran gold prospector, and they have him sift through
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: the cellar to try and find the skull or the sheriff.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: He's convinced that, you know, they should still find her dentures,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: like some reports say she has gold teeth, others porcelain.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: Either way, the fire wouldn't have burnt through them. So
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: this guy Denters is sifting and then he's like, oh,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: I've found the tooth. It's a it's got no signs
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: of fire damage whatsoever, but I totally found it. And
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: that's his work on the matter. Joe's is a little different,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: but we'll get back to that and I'll be second.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: So at this point, fourteen bodies have been discovered on
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: the farm, and ray Lamfair's trial begins on the ninth
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: of November nineteen oh eight. Now he claims innocence and
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: that he couldn't have murdered it. And this is where
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: it turns into a bit of a sticky wicket. The
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: trial is it's chaos. It's absolute chaos, and there's like
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: the coroner gets questioned and it's like, can you tell
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: if this was severed or was burnt? And it's like no.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: And you have these independent like autopsies done by like
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: three different these three different doctors perform like autopsies and
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, things are amiss here. And see the
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: body of the woman in the cellar. It's missing ahead,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: it's missing hands, it's missing feet. She's round about five
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: two five foot four they say, which is at least
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: three to five inches shorter than Bell. And this is skinny.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: It's skinny, right, she's one twenty And even if you
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: take into consideration, like you know, fat being burned off,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: but belgunness was two hundred and eighty pounds, like she
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: had a lot of muscle as well as fat, so
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: it doesn't add up. And also it takes like twenty
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: hours to cremate bodies, so the skull it should not
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: have been cremated. In that fire, So Sheriff's mutzer. He
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: takes to the stand and he regales the court with
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: the history of Bell Gunnis and Ray lamfair. Now, whether
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: he is convinced that Ray did it or he just
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: wants to pin it on Ray, whom's to say, But
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: he's he's like giving all his raisins as to why
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: Ray did this. Then Joe takes the stand, right, he
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: says that he saw Lewis Schultz take the false teeth
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: from his vest and not the ash that he was sifting.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: But Lewis Schultz is nowhere to be found, right, He's
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: the dentist confirms that this is Belle's dead to work, right,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: and the Sheriff's like, well, no one would hurt themselves
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: and pull out their own teeth, sir. People have done worse.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: People have stabbed themselves, shot themselves themselves on fire, poured
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: acid on themselves just to avoid, you know, being accused
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: of murder, and you know, things like that. People have
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: done worse. And also like again, drugs are everywhere, drugs
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: and so she had been out a day or so before,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: like before the twenty sevens, and she purchased morphine, which
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: is pretty potent, and it's a good thing to dick
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: if you're ripping your teeth out of your face. Is
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: someone who's had their teeth ripped out without anesthesia. It's
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: a short story, but it's a sore story. My mum
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: used to pull my teeth out well the tee tawel,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: and my dad had pinned me down, because why take
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: a child to the dentist when you can just rip
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: the teeth from their face. Everybody did that, right? That was?
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: That was a nineties thing, I think? Was it? It was?
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: It wasn't it? Tell me it was? So? Ray ends
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: up being indicted on charges of arson and murder, and
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: he's found guilty of the arson, but he's found not
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: guilty of the murders of Belle Myrtle, Lucy, Philip and
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: Andrew because they lump Hiven with the Andrew murder. Like
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: hm hmm. It's very suspicious, and Ray lamfair. He he
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: doesn't have the money to appeal, and even if he did,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: he's dead within a year, right, He's in prison and
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: he dies of tuberculosis, like less than a year after
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: his conviction. And as for Belle Gunn as well, wasn't
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: her body in the fire. It's missing ahead missing other
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: body parts. The teeth, they're pristine, there's no fire damage
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: on them. Like even the undertaker when he measures the body,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: he's like, this woman is about five foot two. Now,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: granted we're missing a hit so proportionally as well, the
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: thing is your outstretch tanned. Is the size of your face,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: It's just your body is weirdly proportioned most of the time,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: and so we don't have hats, so we can't measure that.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: Like your foot is usually the length of your wrist
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: to the inside of your elbow, and I think it's
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: like you have seven of your head makes up the
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: rest of your body. So let's probably have the like
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: guestimated it, I suppose, So you have the fire starting
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: point as well. Now, the fire the point of origin
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: was the cellar door, and this is where the body
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: was found. So if the fire was at the cellar door,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: why would Bell with her children go through the fire
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: and into the cellar Like it doesn't make sense to me.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: And also like she's not actually afraid of anyone, Like
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: clearly she'll let anybody with a sausage grinder. But I
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: don't think she could have been coerced into the basement.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: But the theory is like with regards to how she
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: swindled these men, is they would visit, she would take
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: the money, she would poison them, and then she would
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: hack them up. So she would and again she can
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: dead lift a pig, so and you can deadlift like
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: a hog, you can deadlift a man, I think. And
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: so she would bring their bodies down into the cellar
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: where she would dismember them, and then she would just
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: get them buried on the farm. Now, she swindled around
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: one point two million dollars like in today's money, that's
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: what she got from these men. And depending on where
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: you look, the body count is fourteen thirty seven forty hundreds, right,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: And then there's the question of like did she escape,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: did she leave her children, did she kill them? Or
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: are these other children's bodies right, because she keeps acquiring
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: kids from somewhere, Like there's all these theories about whether
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: she was doing trafficking or goodness, selling babies and all
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: this kind of stuff like did she flee, did she
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: choose to end her own life while having like one
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: last act of vengeance because she's petty now and thus
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: pointing all of it to ray, did she survived like
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: there were reports of seeing her for years? And here's
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: the thing, but a hennah bit of bleach. She could
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: have changed her hair color, you know what I mean.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: She could have stooped, she could have won a shawl
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: like an old lady. She could have put on an accent.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: Or she could be dead in the cellar. But and
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: as an answer, we just don't have when it comes
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: to Belguinness. And so ends our about tale of Bell Gunness,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: America's most prolific serial killer or female serial killer, and
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: also the fact that America's most prolific serial killer is Norwegian.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: Like can you guys not do anything right? So sorry,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, but thank you for listening to this
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: two hundred episode. Please get your tickets for the tour.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: Come and see me Los Angeles. We did. Come on,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: get your tickets. Beat Belfast. You cannot be beaten by Belfast,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Come on, come on, what's this? But I'm
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: very excited. I'm very excited to be back. It's gonna
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: be great. Recommendation time for reading, recommendation time. Okay, it
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: is ready for pre order. It is ready for pre order,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: So pre order this for my girl. Doctor is MEI
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: Louise James and her fiction novel Becoming Venus. Okay, that
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: is your reading. Pre order it. Do it, women, supporting women,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: Let's do it. For listening. You should listen today a
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: Nightshade because the season one finale is out this week
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: and hits so good. But I did forget about the
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: Elephant drive by, but that's I'm sorry, but I did
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: forget anyway for watching, and I okay, I know it's
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: not out yet. I realize I've just named things that
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: aren't ready yet, but I am so ready for Ride
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: or Die With, like Hannah Waddingham and Octavia Spencer like
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: I am. I need it and I need it injected
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: straight into my veins. I am ready. But again, thank you.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go, but thank you everybody. This is a
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: bonus episode that I stayed up half the night to
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: write and I hope you enjoyed it. But wasn't too
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah, But I am really excited. I thinks
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: are just things are just doing well right now and
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: I'm super excited. So with that, I shall bed you
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: with you. Adios au revoir of DASM my friends, Bye bye,