Belle Gunness: - Known For Killing Men Who Were Romantically Attracted To Her Including Her Many Husbands

Belle Gunness (11 November 1859 — possibly 28 April 1908) was a Norwegian-American serial killer active in Illinois and Indiana between 1884 and 1908.

She immigrated to the United States in 1881 and settled in Chicago, where she married a fellow Norwegian immigrant Mads Albert Sorenson, and together they opened a candy store. The couple had four children (two of whom died young).

Not long after Gunness married Mads Albert Sorenson in 1884, their store and home were mysteriously burned down. The couple claimed the insurance money for both (home and store). Soon after, Sorenson died from heart failure. On the day that Mads died, his two life insurance policies overlapped. Gunness collected payouts from both life insurance policies.

Insurance policy payout, allowing her to purchase a farm in La Porte, Indiana. She quickly remarried Peter Gunness in 1901. Peter died eight months later due to an injury to the skull. Belle explained that Peter was reaching for something on a high shelf, and a meat grinder fell on him, shattering his skull. His death was a result of an accident.

While an official investigation was being conducted, no evidence of foul play could be produced, leading to another heavy insurance payout.

After her second husband died, Belle began searching for men who could become her new husband. She was so determined to find a new husband that she had advertised in many major newspapers in the area.

Her advertisement attracted a lot of potential suitors. Belle also managed to convince the men to visit her Indiana farm and to bring with them their life savings.

During this time, people in that area saw Belle with different men. The potential suitors would have visited Belle's farm and never been seen again. At this point, no one knew what had happened to the men.

But Gunness's luck seemed to be running out in 1908, as her farmhouse burned to the ground. When the officials inspected the scene they found four skeletons in the flaming wreckage. Three of them were identified as Belle's children. However, the fourth, believed to be Gunness, was inexplicably missing from his skull. But it is widely believed that she faked her death. Her actual fate has not been confirmed.

After the farmhouse burned down, Belle's victims were excavated from their shallow graves around the farm. Just when Asle Helgelien's searching for his missing brother, Andrew (Andrew was one of the men who responded to Belle's advertisement).

When Asle got to the farmhouse, he began digging in the hog pen with the help of a former farmhand. They stumbled upon the digging of various parts of the body. Numerous parts of the body were discovered, but not all could be identified, as many bodies had been decapitated and some of the heads were nowhere to be found. Some sources speculate, the remains of more than 40 men and children were exhumed.

Belle Gunness was pronounced dead, but whether she died in the fire or did indeed escape remains a matter of dispute and speculation.