Does this place look haunted? No, I don't think so. What about the two creepy girls come stay with us. That is truly frightening. You know it's really scary, Mr Mann Geico's great service with gecko. You get twenty four seven access to licensed agents. Thank you. Creepy girls want to see your room. We're gonna sleep in the car now happy Geico Ween switch today for twenty four seven access to license agent in this uncertain and turbulent time. It's helpful to reflect on a historical past to understand how it can inform our present in our election special to. part. Series of personality, we're digging into the life and legacy of Joe Mccarthy want understand what really made Joe Mccarthy Tick and, in turn, what effect psyche. Had on Americans of the day. Take listen to this new to part personality election.

special in all of our other episodes on the radio, app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts happy Saturday. Today we are going back to our previous episode on Belle Gunness, which is part murder story and part history mystery. Her crimes were discovered after a fire in nineteen o eight, but whether she perished in that fire is still a little unclear. This episode is from previous hosts, Sarah and Delina, and it came out September, twenty eight TH, two thousand and eleven Welcome to stuff, you missed in history class, a production of I heart, radio

alone. Welcome to the park cast, I'm going to try for boarding, and I'm thirty and this topic. The topic of this episode was a suggestion from Listener Jesse and I feel like I should say that, because it such a gruesome story, I dont want Sarah to be mad at me. Picking at does have a decapitated body yeah, that's true! Are you putting that on a category? No, that's not! Why I selected it, I selected it because it was a listener suggestion and it is an interesting story. It's a fascinating mystery and you know how we love those it starts at least for most of the world. This is when it started with a fire that took place the morning of April twenty eight TH nineteen o eight at eight, at a small farm just outside of Laporte Indiana, which was then a town of about ten thousand about months.

From Chicago and the farm was owned by a widow named Belle Gunness and her home. There was completely destroyed by the fire, but it was after the fire that the real mystery started so for charred bodies were found in the cellar and three appeared to be the bodies of Genesis, children, Myrtle, Sorenson, Lucy Sorenson and Philip Gunnar who were eleven nine in five years old respectively. The fourth body, though, with kind of a puzzle in like a sad, that's where the mystery really started yet people assume that the body was gonna says, make sense right. It's a. body and going to live there. So you imagine that she would be there with her kids, but there were a couple of problems right off the bat people thought. The body, seemed a little too small to be Bell. She was woman of some stature. Let's say she was about five, eight and proximately two hundred thirty pounds, and this body appear to belong to someone who

much shorter and lighter. It was all The missing ahead, making it even harder to confirm the identity. I should correct my earlier statement. This is why I thought might have selected because know you like missing heads, but only with the NED Kelly thing ok, ok well in Henry. The fourth till now looks ok, never mind, but what really made people suspicious about this? This find was the arrival of a man named awfully hull glean who came on the scene looking for his brother Andrew, and he said that Andrew had been corresponding with Bell and insisted that the police search the property in a look for this missing brother, what they found. Those really disturbing Andrews dismembered by. Plus the body of a lot of other people, so Listener Jesse commented on what a media storm the story would have created if it had happened today, but it started a bit of a media frenzy back then too, as

more bodies were dug up and it became more and more clear that Bell had been a ruthless killer. Newspapers gave her catchy nicknames like the mistress of murder, hill and Lady Blue Beard. But who was Bell Gun is real. and why and how did she kill all of these people and another question, which is probably one of the main questions that people I know now did she really died and that one thousand nine hundred and eight fire so we're going to look at all of the stuff, but we're going to start with that first question: who was Belle Gunness We don't know too much about Bell Gunness early life, except that she was born in a small village in Norway on November twenty second, eighteen, fifty nine and her name was originally Bryn. Hild, Paul's, daughter stores that and her family was very poor and several sources actually suggests that her father may have been a stone may then, and that she probably had to work as a whole

hand at an early age to help her family make ends meet. But what we do know is that some time in or shortly after eighteen, anyone Bryn held emigrated to the United States in her early twenties, specifically to Chicago and changed her name to Bell. She had a sister named Nellie Larsson who'd emigrated to Chicago authors, though she had a connection there but She again returned to pretty grueling work. Yeah and again, we don't know too much about those first years in the United States for Bell, but we do know that she probably worked as a house servant which would have been pretty tough work and she probably didn't like it very much, because her sister was later quoted. A same quote: Bell was crazy for money and working as a house servant would not have.

Where did her as much as that by about one thousand eight hundred and eighty four she married a man named to MAX Mads Sorensen was also a norwegian immigrant, but that wouldn't have really been her ticket to instant wealth. Either though he was a department, store, detective and later worked for the shack railroad in eighteen. Ninety they opened up a confectioner shop in downtown Chicago, but that wasn't very successful. It was, however, insured, oh, oh indeed, the bill actually burnt down around a year into their business venture and after that they were able to collect a little bit of insurance. Money, maybe doesn't seem like such a big deal on the surface, but this kicked off a pattern for bell that would probably raise a few red flags today in eighteen. Ninety eight, the Sorenson House also burned down, and they collected insurance money for that and the couples first, two kids, who were also

Shirt died in infancy, officially of acute collide us about now. Looking back people say the symptoms are similar to if they had been poisoned. Okay, so even if you look at all of that is just really really bad luck or really weird coincidence. What happens next has to make you a little bit suspicious, at least so mad sore dies on dies on July Thirtieth, nineteen hundred, which just happens to be the one day that to life insurance policies from different mutual associations overlapped. Officially, the cause of death was heart failure, but his symptoms actually indicated strychnine poisoning and the insurance pay out because of those two policies was pretty huge. Eight thousand five

dollars, and that was quite a large sum for the time and it said that Bell tried to go, collect it just a day after the funeral, so she was certainly not playing the part of the grieving widow. It was probably suspicious, but there wasn't an autopsy, so Bell got the insurance money and on our way. She did. She use the money actually to buy the farm on the outskirts of Laporte and she moved there with three kids, Jenny, Myrtle and Lucy, and just an aside here about the kids, it's generally accepted that Jenny, whose full day was probably Jenny. Also, was a foster child, but some say that none of bells children were her on. According to an article by at heart, soul in american history, bills Nellie Larson once said that Bell never had any children of her own, though she would at times have as many as twelve children

her care. So just an interesting thing to think about. As we go on I mean. Maybe there was some money associated with fostering children. You know, maybe you got some money from the government for loud or something you know it's something that people don't focus on the most when they're talking about ball genes, but it's something that stuck out to me. Definitely in her story. It's unusual. Hi. This is Hillary Clinton, hosted the new podcast you and me both there's a lot to be just and worried about right now, and it's made so much worse by the fact that we can't be together. So I find myself on the phone alot talking with friends exports Really anyone who can can help make some sense of these challenging times. These conversations have been a lifeline for me and now I hope they will be for you to. Please listen to you and me both on the heart, radio, app Apple podcast

or wherever you get your podcasts welcome to beyond on the beauty a podcast from I heart, radio, I'm your host Bobby Brown I've been in the building industry for a long time and I've learned a lot. I have watched makeup skin care, beauty change more than I ever could have imagined season, and beyond the beauty on exploring the beauty industry past and present, I'm reflecting on my own experiences and I'm talking to some of the biggest and brightest. beauty today from celebrity make artists to brand to brand founders. We have hold names and the up and comers for changing the game. Today, I'm back with brand new

beginning October. Twenty eight th, listen to beyond the beauty on the I heart, radio, app apple podcast or ever you listen to your favorite, shows join me as we all learn about the real meaning of beauty. So nine hundred and two bell married again and her second husband this time was a widower and a butcher by trade named Peter Genie, who was also a native of Norway and Peter genes, came to the marriage with two kids already one was an infant named Jenny and she missed

recently died just a week after the wedding when she was a home alone with Bell and the other was a five year old girl and after that incident with the baby, she was removed from her father and bells care and taken away by her uncle too, with content. Peter Dennis didn't really less that much longer. Only eight months after the wedding, he was struck on the head by a heavy cast iron sausage grinder that fell off of a kitchen shelf, and it was a fatal injury that, according to heart cells, article was quote augmented by the crock of hot brine. That quote fell on him simultaneously sounds kind of suspicious. Doesn't it yeah? You would think so and in fact, bells. Fourteen year old foster daughter was said to have told people after that, that she'd see Mama smack him on the head with a clever. But later she denied that's when she was questioned by the coroner. The coroner and other people actually were suspicious of thus but ultimate there was no evidence, so they had.

I story and she collected another three thousand five hundred dollars in insurance money, but after Peter Gani's death Bell started taking out matrimony, adds in scandinavian newspaper she's. Looking for love, she describes herself as good looking quote: stout quote womanly an example of how one of these adds might read: quote: comely widow, who owned the large farm in one of the finest districts of Laporte County Indiana desires, to make the acquaintance of a gentleman equally well, provided with view of joining fortunes. No reply by letter, considered unless sender is willing to follow answer with personal visit. And probably my my favorite of these ads they'd end with lines like triflers need not apply, so she wanted serious inquiries. She was not messing around no and she didn't just want to chat either no scrubs exactly she got several answers to these ads, and basically this is how it works started, exchanging letters with a guy and they would get too

each other. She tell him how great her set up at the farm was tell him Express some sort of affection or something tell him that she loved him even make veil sexual overtures, but at this time. She made it clear that she expected these guys to bring something to the relationship, namely cash, so after corps funding with the guy for awhile she'd invite him to report but encourage him to sell all of his belongings and property beforehand and bring the clash along with them? out the farm. We just need the money come and bring it yeah, but here's the cat she didn't want any of these. Eyes to tell anyone close to them what they were doing so would show up run a few errands with her Usually one of those areas would be to the bank go to her house, and then they pretty much never be seen again, and this happened was that men, including a guy named John MO another named Ali Buds Burg. Both were from Wisconsin

then, and if anybody at all came looking for these guys after the fact Bell would just say that she hadn't seen em orb, oh yeah, they were here, but they laughed and that's what she tell her suspicious neighbours too. Because they would see these men go in and then never come out again and she just say they had left at night. They were gone already and in one thousand nine hundred and six something happened that really people couldn't ignore. Quite as much bells Foster daughter, Jenny disappeared, but bill had an excuse. There too, she told people that Jenny had gone off to college California making something of herself. It seemed yeah and it seemed the daughter being missing was barely a hiccup for her. She just kept up the letter. Writing and Bell's mailman even said that she wrote around ten letters a day and got about the same number, in the mail and on days She didn't get any letters. She would be kind of upset kind of cranky, so this all went smoothly for her relative we so until she struck up a correspondence with South Dakota farmer Andrew Helga Line prison

I believe she is the same strategy on him that she did with others has brother later found some of their letters, and several of these have actually been preserved, so people have translated them their written and norwegian, and and saw the kind of methods that she used in Italian exactly so there. The letters Bell would constantly remind him about bringing the money to Laporte and give him all kinds of advice about how to bring it to she would say you know, tell him the denomination of the bills to bring and tell him to so site as underwear and that keep again that he shouldn't tell any you buddy about it and just kept sort of repeating these things throughout and Catherine Rams lend to as a foreign sex. I colleges, two's written about the gun, escape says bells technique of regularly harping on the money. Thing is actually a technique called seeding, that's Euston Hypnosis, so she would try to

implant. This idea of bringing her money into his unconscious mind with constant repetition seems a little suspicious. I mean I guess they. They were distracted almost by these sentiments that were also in her letter, because she would appeal to the needs of the the immigrant man to he was probably lonely and homesick and South Dakota and her talk of norway- probably comforted him. They weren't they weren't all just about the money feel they could relate. They could relate to each other. It seems like a promising relationship. So after a year and a half of writing these letters back and forth Andrew came to Laporte in early one thousand, nine hundred and eight and then vanished, just like all of the other guys. But what bill wasn't banking on was his brother off Lee who you wear Andrew, had gone through Andrew must have broken one of those rules of bell, yet how anyone here he he broke that rule

he didn't actually follow instructions either as far as selling his farm? And you know it so in the bills and is under way and all the things he did have a lot of money sent to the bank and Laporte, but he didn't necessarily follow all the rules but Oslo concerned and he started writing to belle. He really thought that his brother was going to return in a week or so, and so when he didn't, he he reached out, and he didn't believe bells explanations. That answer is simply gone away. Her with Amina Brown is a weekly podcast, brought to you by cynical women, podcast network, an I heart, radio. I'm your host Amina Brown and each week, I'm bringing you hilarious, storytelling and soulful conversation while entering the stories of black indigenous latinx and asian women each week. We are going to laugh, consider and reflect upon the top Join join me as we remind each other to access joy effect and and be inspired. Listen to her a

a brown on the I heart, radio, app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hi, I'm Ariel demos and I'm hosting a new podcast called twice use reports with so much going on around the world. So many people telling you they have the definitive take on the news. We bring you to the news, so you can hear it for yourself from the newsroom that has earned more Emmy nominations than any other news teams. This podcast goes where the story is from conflict zones to the labyrinth of digital life. You've never done I quite like this get the vice use. Reports podcast on the I heart radioactive apple pie, casts or wherever you get your podcasts Around the same time Bell had some other trouble, she fired her hired hand, Ray lamp fear and he

said to be in love with her. He was probably jealous of all the guys coming around who knows, but he started making public scenes after he was. Let go and Bell tried to take legal action against him and have him declared insane. So maybe it was a combination of pressure from this, as well as some increasing questions from these relatives of the men who she'd written to as well as questions from her neighbors. But on April, twenty seven TH nineteen o eight eight bell kept her kids home from school, and she went into town and her her lawyer and wrote her. Will and she was also seen buying a lot of kerosene, so went into town and did some did some errands course from Inter we know what happened next, her house burn down the bodies were found and ultimately, they found between twelve and fourteen bodies, including the body of the foster daughter, Jenny who had gone off to college in a couple of other, unidentified children and

were several theories as to what happened with the fire. Immediately after a lot of people thought that Bell had committed suicide cause, she was afraid that all of her crimes were about to come to light that they have been discovered. Leah fear, however, was the one that the police immediately arrested. Bell had told her lawyer the day before that she was afraid of him and he charged with four counts of murder and with arson, and so it seemed initially that that may be. He was to blame It was found later, though, that the four people in the cellar had died by means other than the fire. They had probably been poisoned by strychnine. They found traces of strychnine, nine in their bodies actually, but the bodies had been mishandled so that they couldn't prove it. So at lamp years trial in May, nineteen o eight. He was only convicted of arson. He died less than two years later in prison and on his death bed. He confessed to setting house on fire and to helping Bell escape. He said the headless body below

to a woman from Chicago whom Bell had just hired as a housekeeper. She killed the housekeeper and the three children and planted the bodies to make it look like an accident. Also admitted to helping Bell bury the other victims, although he said that he wasn't involved in actually murdering them, but he did scribe how Bell did murder her victims? It turns out the chief poisoned, a lot of them, some of them. She left their bodies intact, some of them she butchered some of the bodies she actually dropped into a vat of hot water and then covered with quicklime, which is a substance that kind of birds, like acid,

So I'm assuming she did this to disguise the bodies. So who knows how many of these details are actually accurate, but this is probably the closest scenario to most to what most people think happened as far as bell. What happened to Bell after the fire, though nobody knows for certain what happened to her after that or to her money. Historians estimate that she may have extorted up to ninety thousand dollars from her suitors, but the day after the fire, there was only seven hundred in her report

account. So we mentioned in the beginning that Bell story did get a lot of attention at the time and since then, she's become sort of a spooky local legend in that part of Indiana neighbors, for instance, claimed to have seen her in the weeks after the fire, and there have been numerous bell sighting since then, but the most notable one happened in LOS Angeles in nineteen thirty one. So a considerable amount of time. After after her disappearance, a woman named Esther Carlson was accused of poison in a man. She worked for named August Linstrom for two thousand dollars that he'd put in a joint bank account and Carlson died before this went to trial, but a couple people familiar with Bell. They were Laporte residents who were, in LOS Angeles at the time, claimed a newspaper photo of Karlsson matched that of Bell and others also confirm the connection, but there wasn't any definitive proof that this was the same woman still up to her old, murdering ways.

Away and allay yes, so I mean the question is still out there did she die in the fire or not? It's really tough. To say I mean people. I wondered about this for years, authorities eventually found a dental bridge with one too thin it in the ruins of the fire that a dentist PA. if we had done a fine as bowels, but historians were hardly convince, let Us- and how can we mean if you're gonna fake your death in a fire leave behind your dental bridge? Get another point that I found in some of my research was ok well done. Us is obviously a psychopath she's killed all of these people. So issue really gonna care to pull out one tooth so leave and this dental bridge, probably not when you look at it that way people have not. the go, though in two thousand seven late, two thousand seven Suzanne Mackay, a great granddaughter of bell. Gonna sister and one of the last living relatives of the infamous sir serial killer gave a team of U S. Searchers permission to exude the headless body that was found in the cellar of the tourist farmhouse, and they were going to come,

The dna from the remains there too saliva samples from battle, sealed letters so As we know, the tests were inconclusive with that, and I think that they got a sample from a dna sample from the family member also and we're trying to test that as well and I looked for more recent updates on that and I couldn't find anything more recent in the last couple of years, so I dont know for sure if they were able to find a match or not. I think what they're really looking for us to find the opposite of that is to find that there is not a match, because most people believe that a well her than girls, sing, and then you know the mystery will still stand where it really go. And what did she do? You have wage instantly,

pays them unstring joining us on this matter day, since this episode is out of the archive and he heard of Emily address or a facebook url or something similar over the course of the show that could be obsolete. Now, our current EU mail address is history. Pod cast an eye heart. Radio dot com are old. Helstone. Worse, we militarist no longer works. You can find us all over social media at missed in history, and you can subscribe to our shared on Apple pie, task, Google Podcast, the eye heart radio app and wherever else he listened, the fog casts stuffy miss than history classes, the production of high heart radio for more five cap. For my heart radio miserably I her radio, cabin Mancha or wherever you listen to your favorite chance.