Join the La Porte County Historical Museum on Saturday, November 7th, 2026 from 10am – Noon or 1:30 – 3:30 to learn about Belle Gunness and her terrible, murderess, and evil actions.
The event starts with ‘The Gunness Mystery’ documentary showing at 11am. At noon, a downtown historic walk will begin with participants viewing spots in La Porte that Belle frequented. Participants will start at the Museum and will receive a booklet with explanations of each of the locations to visit. Then at 2pm, Retired Judge William Boklund will give his program, ‘Stories from the Gunness Mystery’.
About Belle Gunness:
Belle was born in 1859 into a poor family in a small village in Norway, and later immigrated to the United States to live with her sister Nellie Larson in Chicago.
Belle and Mads Sorensons, a department store detective, had opened a Candy Store downtown Chicago. The store was not successful, and the business burned down after a year. Insurance money was paid to the Sorenesons who moved to Austin, Texas. This home was destroyed by fire in 1898.
Belle and Mads Sorensons had four children, Caroline, Axel, Myrtle, and Lucy. Caroline and Axel died in infancy. Both Caroline and Axel were said to have died of acute colitis, which also has the same symptoms of poisoning. Insurance money was paid for both of the children in 1896 and 1898 respectively. Mads died in 1990, two days after two life insurance policies had overlapped. Even though he showed symptoms of stryuchnine poisoning, Belle was awarded $8,500 in insurance money, a large sum of money in those days and she bought the farm on the outskirts of LaPorte.
In 1902, Belle Married a man by the name of Peter Gunness and one week after the marriage, Peter’s infant daughter died while alone in the house with Belle. Peter also died in 1902, whereby Belle gained $3,000 in insurance money. After Peter’s death, Belle placed lovelorn ads in the Scandinavian newspapers looking for a husband and asking them to sell all they had and come marry her.
In 1908, the farm house on McClung Road Caught fire where workers discovered four bodies in the basement, which later revealed they had been murdered and placed in the basement before the fire. Right before the day of the fire, Belle Gunness went into town to see her lawyer, and made a will leaving everything she owned to her children and an orphanage in Chicago. She told her lawyer, “I’m afraid he’s (Ray Lamphere) was going to kill me and burn the house.”
During the fire investigation Belle’s body was not found in the fire, but dental records found a portion of Belle’s bridgework, which later on was questioned in the trial of Ray Lamphere. In 1906 Ray Lamphere, was hired to work on the farm and was madly in love with Belle, and was later fired in early 1908. On November 26, 1908, the jury found Ray Lamphere guilty on the charge of arson and sentenced him to 2 to 21 years at the State Prison in Michigan City.
Lamphere was acquitted of the murder charges. According to Lamphere, the headless body in the fire was a Chicago woman whom Belle had hired a few days before the fire to be her housekeeper. He went on to claim that Belle had killed the housekeeper and children, planting the bodies in the house to make the deaths look accidental. Lamphere admitted to helping Belle dispose of her victims’ bodies, but denied helping Belle extort and murder her victims. He also claimed there was at least one other accomplice but offered no name.
Then the story got twisted even further, when it was discovered that Andrew Helgelein had answered Belle’s lovelorn advertisement and came to America with $3,000 after selling all his property and assets. Andrew’s body was later found on the property one of the 12 bodies were found.
The investigation continued to find who the bodies belonged to. Belle’s young ward, Jennie Olsen, disappeared in late 1906. When friends asked after her, they were told that she had been sent to a Lutheran College in California. Her body was the second one discovered during the digging.
Despite all the investigating and confessing, there has never been a conclusive answer for the house fire and corpses — just theories.
There were many Belle sightings in the twenty odd years after the fire. They actually started before people thought she might still be alive. Train workers claim to have seen her board trains going to Chicago on April 29, 1908. On May 8, 1908, a woman who fit Belle’s description was pulled off a train and detained until her identity was proven. Most of these sightings were investigated and discounted–except one. In 1931, in Los Angeles, a woman going by the name of Esther Carlson, was arrested for the murder of a man she was caring for, August Lindstrom, for his $2000 bank account. Mrs. Carlson died in prison before her trial and before her identity could be proven. Two former La Porteans viewed the body in the morgue and came away convinced they had just seen the body of Belle Gunness.
This abbreviated story of Belle Gunness has been culled from the various books and articles available in the LaPorte County Public Library collection of Belle Gunness material.
About the Event . . .
Caution as this event may not be suitable for younger children.
The museum is located at
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Susie Young Baxter, CEO, has published PanoramaNOW Magazine for 31 years. Her hobbies are Camping, Boating, Hiking, Nature, Gardening and Outdoor Activities. She is an Artist, Graphic Designer, an Avid Seamstress, Dabbles in Homemade Crafts and Landscaping. Since her Father was a Health Teacher, she also likes homeopathic Health Solutions. Since blogging started over 10 years ago, PanoramaNow has been added to Newsbreak – a national news affiliate.
