Belle Gunness: The Killer Known As Lady Bluebeard

By | February 6, 2019

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Suspected murderer Belle Gunness with her children Lucy Sorensen, Myrtle Sorensen and Philip Gunness in 1904. Gunness is suspected of killing up to 15 men for their insurance. Source: (gettyimages.com)

Who Is She?

Belle Sorenson Gunness was born in Norway and immigrated to America in 1881. She settled in the Indiana and Illinois area. Several deaths and disappearances connected to her were suspicious and she collected insurance money as a result of some of these deaths. How did she do it?

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The Farm of Belle Gunness. Source: (pinterest.com)

Her First Victims

After Belle Gunness moved to America, she ended up in Chicago where she met Mads Sorenson. They opened a business together and had four children. A year after they opened their store, business fell off and they were financially strapped until the store building caught on fire and they collected the insurance money. Over the next couple of years, two of their children died. They both had symptoms of poisoning. Both of those kids had life insurance policies, which Belle collected. Her husband died in 1900, coincidentally on the one and only day that two life insurance policies overlapped. The first doctor to treat him thought he was suffering from strychnine poisoning; he was talked out of pursuing that. No one knows why. One idea is most people did not think of a woman as being capable of committing such acts. She used the insurance money to purchase a farm in Indiana. A building on the farm burned down shortly after she purchased it and again, she collected insurance money.