



What made her more like male serial killers is that she then chopped up the bodies of her victims. Nobody knows 100 percent for sure how she murdered her victims, but apparently she killed them by poisoning, which is very typical of female serial murders. Did she behave differently than a male serial killer? Afterward, searchers found numerous body parts, the headless body of a woman and teeth that had seemingly belonged to Gunness.įemale serial killers are relatively rare. Their whereabouts remained unknown until a fire at her farm in 1908. But soon her visitors, as well as her farm hands, began disappearing. Although the exact number of her victims is not known, experts say she murdered 14 to 24 people.Īfter settling in La Porte, Indiana with her children, the widow- her first and second husbands died in “accidents”-began luring potential suitors between 19 with the promise of sharing her pig farm and her money. Schecter’s new book, “Hell’s Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men ,” recounts the tale of Gunness, a Norwegian woman who immigrated to the United States in 1881 and became one of the country’s most infamous serial killers. True-crime author Harold Schechter first ran across the name Belle Gunness more than 10 years ago while researching a different book, but he could never get out of his mind the lurid details of her crimes-poisoning and chopping up a succession of victims-before possibly disappearing. What Really Happened to Belle Gunness, Serial Killer and Butcher of Men? Article Details: What Really Happened to Belle Gunness, Serial Killer and Butcher of Men?
