Belle Gunness is the first female serial killer of the 20th century. When you read stories about Belle Gunness you’d learn that she had killed her children, husbands, suitors and others who may interfere with her plans. She did this because of money. Belle Gunness was from Norway and she lived in poverty. She was one of the people who worked hard in order to get her ticket out of Norway and try her luck in the United States.
It was said that Belle Gunness had a very tragic experience while in Norway when a man kicked her in the stomach while she was pregnant and it killed the baby in her womb. A few months later, that man died. It was never confirmed whether he died because of poisoning but it was stated that he died because of stomach cancer. A strange coincidence considering that Belle Gunness had murdered her children and first husband with poison but was never prosecuted because she was very convincing.
Belle Gunness discovered that insurance money was easy to get as she gets insurance from burning down houses and later on killing her children then her first husband. She then married Mr. Gunness, a butcher, which she later on killed brutally. She became a very wealthy willow but suspicion grew about the death of her two husbands and children. But she found a way to get even more money without going for the insurance claims. She posted a personal ad in a newspaper seeking for a man suitor and it got her numerous men who traveled all the way to La Porte, Indiana, to her farm, with their life savings. There, she would lure them until they are able to deposit their money to her account and she would then murder them with poison. She would then slice their bodies and bury them in her farm or even feed them to the pigs.
When suspicion grew, she found a way to fake her own death. It is believed that the death of her children and a woman in her burned out farm was staged and that they were dead before the fire. The body of the supposed to be Belle Gunness had no head and it was much too small compared to a 5 foot 8 inches tall woman that was Belle. Her story was a mystery and she was able to escape with thousands of dollars and over 40 murders.