Belle Gunness

 Belle Gunness was a Norwegian-American murderer of the early 20th century. It’s not certain how many people she killed but the motive for murder was financial gain.

She was born in Norway on 11 November 1859. She was one of 8 siblings. Her father was a stonemason. 

Belle migrated to the USA in 1881. Her birth name was Brynhild but she began calling herself Belle. In 1884, she married a man named Sorenson. The two ran a candy store, which was not successful. It burned down and they claimed insurance money. The couple had four children. Sadly, two of them died, supposedly of acute colitis, although they may have been poisoned. Both children had life insurance. As well as her two surviving children, Belle had an adopted daughter called Jennie Olsen. 

Sorenson died in 1900 and Belle collected a large amount of insurance money. His death was ascribed to natural causes but he may have been poisoned.

Belle moved to La Porte, Indiana. In April 1902 she married a man named Peter Gunness. The two had a son. Unfortunately, Peter died in December 1902, supposedly, when a meat grinder fell off a shelf onto his head. At the time, it was decided that his death was an accident. However, Belle gained a large amount of insurance money after his death.

Belle began advertising in newspapers. She described herself as a ‘rich, good-looking widow’. She claimed she owned a large farm and she was looking for a man to marry.

The advert was soon answered. A number of men travelled to Belle’s farm, where they disappeared.  Belle persuaded them to hand over their savings to her. It’s not known how Belle killed her victims. She probably poisoned them. The bodies were buried on the farm.

In 1906, Belle murdered her adopted daughter, Jennie Olsen, aged 16, and buried her body on the farm. Jennie was probably killed because she suspected the truth. Belle told her neighbours that the girl had gone away to school. 

In 1907, Belle employed a farmhand named Ray Lamphere. She later fired him. Belle claimed that Lamphere threatened her life. 

Then, on 28 April 1908 Belle’s farmhouse burned down, killing her three children. The body of a woman was found in the burned ruins, but it was missing its skull. It’s not certain if the dead woman was Belle Gunness.

The farmhand, Ray Lamphere, was arrested for the murder of Belle Gunness and the three children. He was acquitted of murder but convicted of arson. Lamphere was sentenced to 21 years in prison. He died in December 1909.

The relatives of missing people told the sheriff of their suspicions that Belle had killed them. Digging began and the searchers found the body of Belle’s adopted daughter, Jennie Olsen. The bodies of 11 people were found buried on the Gunness farm. Unfortunately, most were too badly decomposed to be identified.

What happened to Belle Gunness is not known. Did she perish in the fire or did she fake her own death?

George Joseph Smith - the brides in the bath murderer

George Joseph Smith is known as the ‘Brides in the Bath’ murderer. He married women bigamously, insured them, and then drowned them in the bath. 

Smith was born in Bethnal Green in London on 11 January 1872. His father, Thomas Smith, was an insurance agent and the family was reasonably well off.  When he was 9 years old George Joseph Smith was caught stealing. Smith was sent to a reformatory for 7 years. 

In the 19th century, reformatories were established as an alternative to sending children to prison. In them, discipline was very harsh but boys were supposed to be taught a trade to help them live useful lives when they left.

However, it seems such a severe punishment embittered Smith and left him with a deep resentment of society when he was an adult. He certainly wasn’t reformed.

Like many murderers, Smith had a record of stealing before he turned to murder. He persuaded a woman, who worked as a domestic servant, to steal things for him. However, he was caught in 1896 and sentenced to a year in prison.

After he was released from prison, he used stolen money to open a bakery shop. In 1898, he married Caroline Thornhill. Eventually, his business failed, and he persuaded his wife, who was a servant, to steal from her employers. She was caught and imprisoned, while Smith disappeared. However, when Caroline was released, she spotted Smith by accident, and she called the police. Smith was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to two years in prison. 

Smith then began bigamously marrying women. He would persuade them to give him his savings and then he would disappear. Smith found it easy to find victims because, at that time, many men had emigrated to North America and Australia, hoping for better lives. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a shortage of eligible bachelors. 

Some women were very keen to get married, as life for a single woman was harder then than it is now. There were far fewer career opportunities for women and not having a husband made life difficult. No doubt, Smith could be charming when he wanted and he beguiled several women.

Eventually, Smith turned to murder. In 1910, he met a woman named Bessie Mundy in Bristol. She had inherited a considerable sum of money from her father. Bessie was in her 30s and, no doubt, was very keen to get married. 

Smith married her using a false name, Henry Williams, in Weymouth. However, Smith could not steal her fortune because her father had left it in the hands of trustees. (Perhaps he feared, rightly, that his daughter was naive and might be cheated out of her fortune). 

However, Bessie did have a relatively small amount of money of her own. Smith persuaded her to give it to him, after which he disappeared. He wrote Bessie a letter accusing her of giving him an STD. It was a pointlessly cruel accusation. 

Attitudes to sex and STDs were, of course, very different in the early 20th century and making such an unkind and shocking accusation shows that Smith was a vicious man.

Unfortunately, Bessie met Smith again in 1912 in Weston-Super-Mare. It was probably by accident that she saw him again. She spoke to Smith, who claimed it was all a misunderstanding. He thought it best to leave her when he found he had an STD, as he didn’t want to infect her. He also claimed he had been looking for her for a long time. Unfortunately, Bessie believed him. Sadly, Bessie was probably a gullible woman.  

The couple moved to Herne Bay in Kent. Smith realised that he could not steal Bessie’s fortune as it was held by trustees, as long as she was alive. However, if she made a will leaving it all to him and then died, he would inherit it. He could not obtain her money except by killing her. So Smith persuaded Bessie to make a will in his favour. He thought of an ingenious (and horrendous) way to murder Bessie and make it look like an accident. Smith went to an ironmonger and purchased an iron bath. He also sought out a doctor and told him Bessie had suffered an epileptic fit, although Bessie said she had only suffered headaches. 

On 12 December 1913 Bessie drowned in the bath. It’s thought that Smith grabbed her legs and pulled them upwards. The unfortunate woman’s head was submerged and the water rushing into her nostrils caused instant unconsciousness. Smith then held her until she drowned. There were no injuries to the body and no signs of a struggle. 

Smith summoned the doctor who found Bessie on her back in the bath with her legs protruding over the edge. 

The doctor assumed it was an accident, Bessie, he thought, had suffered a fit and had drowned in her bath. Subsequently, Smith inherited her fortune. 

Incredibly, Smith then took the iron bath back to the ironmonger and asked for a refund. He also arranged the cheapest possible funeral for Bessie. Such callous behaviour was likely to alienate people. If Smith had any sense, he would have tried to appear distraught over the death of his wife. In some ways, Smith was a very stupid man. Smith inadvertently left one vital clue. 

Bessie was clutching a bar of soap tightly in her hand when she died. The doctor noted that and later it was a useful piece of evidence against Smith.

Nevertheless, having got away with murder and made a great deal of money, Smith was bound to try it again. In 1913, he met a 25-year-old woman named Alice Burnham. He married her in November. Alice had some savings and Smith insured her life. 

Smith took the unfortunate woman to Blackpool and they stayed in a boarding house owned by Mrs Crossley. Once again, Smith summoned a doctor for his wife, claiming she was suffering from headaches. Smith drowned the unfortunate woman in a bath. Smith discovered the victim, and an inquest found that Alice accidentally drowned while having a fit. Smith inherited some money from her. He also pocketed her life insurance money. Once again, Smith shocked and alienated people by refusing to spend more than the bare minimum on a funeral. Mrs Crossley, who owned the boarding house, was suspicious of Smith but could not prove anything. An inquest was held but it found that Alice had drowned accidentally. 

The next victim was Margaret Lofty. Smith met her in Bath in 1914 and he persuaded her to marry him. This time, he called himself John Lloyd. Once again, Smith insured the woman and he persuaded her to make a will, leaving all her money to him. 

The couple married on 18 December 1914 and went to stay in a boarding house in London. On her wedding night, Smith called a doctor and told him his new wife was ill. Smith then told the landlady he was going to buy some tomatoes for his wife’s supper. 

On returning, he rang the doorbell. That was odd because he had a key. Smith had probably already drowned his wife but he wanted the landlady to know he was going out and when he returned. No doubt he hoped that when the death was discovered, the landlady would think Smith’s wife had drowned while he was out. 

However, this time, Smith’s luck ran out. The two previous deaths had been reported in local newspapers but this time the death of a woman on her honeymoon made it into the national press. The News of the World reported the story in some detail. Luckily, Mrs Crossley, the landlady of a boarding house in Blackpool where Smith murdered a previous victim, read it. So did Thomas Burnham, the father of Alice Burnham, whom Smith murdered in 1913. Both of them were struck by the similarities in the death of Margaret Lofty in December 1914 and that of Alice Burnham in 1913. Both suspected that  ‘John Lloyd’ was Smith using a different name. They urged the police to investigate. 

The police did. They quickly found that the last victim, Margaret Lofty, had been insured only three days before she died. She also made a will leaving everything to her husband, just hours before she died. They also found out that Alice Burnham had been insured shortly before her death.

The police waited for Smith to claim the insurance money for his last victim, Margaret Lofty. When he did, a detective asked him if he was John Lloyd. Smith said he was. The detective then asked if he was George Smith. At first, Smith denied it but eventually he was forced to admit it. He was arrested on a charge of bigamy.

The police then found that a similar suspicious death had taken place in Herne Bay, Kent, in 1912. It was the first victim, Bessie Mundy. However, the police could not explain

why there were no signs of a struggle or injuries on the bodies. 

Surely if Smith grabbed a woman’s head and held it underwater, she would have struggled desperately? The brilliant pathologist Bernard Spilsbury provided the answer. If someone grabbed a woman’s legs and pulled them upward, her head would be submerged and she would instantly lose consciousness. 

A nurse volunteered for an experiment. She lay in a bathtub and a man pulled up her legs. As Spilsbury predicted, she almost instantly lost consciousness. The brave woman had to be revived by a doctor. Nevertheless, the police could now prove how Smith had drowned his victims, with no signs of a struggle. It was also remembered that the first victim, Bessie Mundy, was tightly gripping a bar of soap in her hand when she was found. If she had suffered a fit, her hand would have relaxed and let it go. It was evidence that the loss of consciousness must have been sudden. Smith was charged with murder, and he went on trial on 22 June 1915. Not surprisingly, he was found guilty and he was hanged on 13 August 1915.

George Chapman

 George Chapman was born in Poland on 14 December 1865. (His real name was Severin Klosowski). He trained to be a barber-surgeon. He married in London, but he later left his wife. He moved to London probably in 1888. Klowoski was a barber in London. He eventually started calling himself George Chapman.

Chapman lived with women whom he called his wives, although he was already legally married. He physically abused his ‘wives’. He also poisoned three of them. The first victim was Mary Spink. Chapman gave up barbering and leased a pub. However, his ‘wife’ fell ill and died on 25 December 1897. 

Her death was ascribed to natural causes (many people died of diseases with symptoms similar to poisoning in those days, so it was often possible to poison someone without arousing suspicion). 

The second victim was Bessie Taylor. While Chapman was the landlord of a pub, he employed her as a barmaid, and she moved in with him. She, too, was abused by Chapman. She, too, fell ill and she died on 13 February 1901. Unfortunately, her death was thought to be due to a disease. 

Chapman’s third victim was Maud Marsh, whom he employed as a barmaid. He persuaded her to move in with him. However, Maud’s family did not trust Chapman. Maud fell ill in 1902. Her mother suspected her daughter was being poisoned, and when Maud died, the doctor refused to issue a death certificate. An autopsy showed that Maud had been poisoned with antimony. The bodies of the first two victims were exhumed, and they too were found to have been poisoned.

Chapman went on trial for murder on 16 March 1903. Not surprisingly, he was found guilty and he was hanged on 7 April 1903. 

It’s not clear why Chapman poisoned women. Maybe he grew tired of them and decided it was a convenient way of getting rid of them. Maybe he also got some satisfaction from poisoning people.

It has been suggested that Chapman was Jack the Ripper. However, there is no evidence to link Chapman to the Whitechapel murders. The murders he committed were different. Jack the Ripper killed strangers by cutting their throats and then mutilating them. Chapman married women and then poisoned them. Furthermore, at the time of Jack the Ripper, Chapman was only 23, which makes him younger than the man eyewitnesses saw.

Thomas Neill Cream - a strychnine poisoner

Thomas Neill Cream was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on 27 May 1850, but his family moved to Canada when he was a child. Cream was trained to be a doctor. He was first convicted of murder in 1881. While living in Chicago, he gave strychnine to a man named Daniel Stott, who suffered from epilepsy. Cream managed to convince Stott that he had a cure for the ailment. Stott’s death was, at first, ascribed to natural causes. 
However, Cream did something very strange. He wrote to the coroner accusing a pharmacist of poisoning Stott. 

The body was exhumed and was found to contain strychnine. Cream was arrested and tried for murder. He was convicted but he was treated with surprising leniency. 
He was sentenced to life imprisonment and he was released in 1891. Why did Cream write to the coroner? He could have gotten away with murder. Perhaps Cream wanted to be caught.

At any rate, after being released in 1891, he moved to Lambeth, London and began poisoning sex workers. Presumably, Cream got some sadistic pleasure from poisoning people. 

The first victim was a 19-year-old woman named Ellen Donworth. She collapsed in agony on the street on 13 October and she died on the way to the hospital. Before she died, she said that a ‘tall gentleman’ had given her a bottle with ‘white stuff’ in it. An autopsy showed she had been poisoned with strychnine. 
Again, Cream wrote letters to people about the murder. He wrote to the coroner, using a false name, offering to name the murderer in return for a large sum of money. He also wrote to the owner of the booksellers W.H. Smith, accusing him of the murder of Donworth and offering to keep silent in return for money. Again, he used a false name.

Next, Cream murdered Matilda Clover. On 20 October 1891, she was found writhing in agony in her room and died shortly afterward. She said a man had given her some pills. Cream wrote to a doctor, William Broadbent and accused him of murdering Matilda Clover. 

In April 1892, Cream met a sex worker called Louise Harvey. Cream helpfully offered her some pills, which he said would clear up her complexion. Fortunately, she only pretended to take them. Cream left, presumably believing he had poisoned her. 
Two other women were not so lucky. On 11 April 1892, Cream met two sex workers, Alice Marsh, aged 21 and Emma Shrivell, aged 18. Cream spent the night with them but before he left, he gave them some pills. 

Unfortunately, both girls took the pills and died of strychnine poisoning.
Cream was caught because he could not resist talking about the murders. He met an American tourist and offered to take him on a tour of the places where the murders were committed. 

However, the tourist was a policeman and he was suspicious of Cream. He informed the British police and they placed Cream under surveillance. They found that he often paid for the services of sex workers and they also found out about his criminal record in the USA. 

Cream was arrested on 3 June 1892 and his trial began on 17 October. He was found guilty on 21 October and was sentenced to death. Thomas Neill Cream was hanged on 15 November 1892.

Henri Landru - Bluebeard

 I wrote about Henri Landru, AKA Bluebeard.

Sidney Fox - he killed his mother

 Sidney Fox was hanged in 1930 for the murder of his mother. Fox was born in Norfolk in 1899. His mother was Rosaline Fox. It’s not certain if Rosaline’s husband William, was his father. Before the murder, Sidney had a history of petty theft and fraud and spent time in jail.

In 1927, Fox’s mother met a 51-year-old woman called Charlotte Morse. Although Fox was gay, he began an affair with Mrs Morse. Fox also stole her jewellery and insured her life. One night Mrs Morse awoke to find her room filling with gas. A gas tap behind a heavy piece of furniture had been turned on, so it was obviously not accidental. Fox was trying to murder the woman for her life insurance money. Mrs Morse told the police. Sydney was not convicted of attempted murder but of stealing and was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

In May 1929, Fox and his mother began a life of staying in hotels and leaving without paying the bills. Sidney took out a life insurance policy on his mother, to expire at midnight on 23 October 1929. 

On that date, they were both staying at the Hotel Metropole in Margate. Mother and son were in adjoining rooms with a connecting door. 

At 11.40 PM on 23 October, Fox raised the alarm that his mother’s room was on fire. Two other guests found the adjoining door closed. They found Rosaline Fox in a burning armchair. They pulled her out, but she was already dead. Sidney claimed he had left his mother reading a newspaper in her room. At first, it was thought the fire was accidental and Rosaline’s death was ascribed to shock and suffocation. 

However, the insurance company was, not surprisingly, suspicious. It was just too convenient that Rosaline died just 20 minutes before the life insurance policy expired. The fire was supposed to have been started by a gas fire in the room but investigators found a patch of unburnt carpet between the fire and the armchair Rosaline was found in. The fire could not have spread from the gas fire to the armchair without burning the patch of carpet between them. 

Even more suspicious, petrol-soaked newspapers and a can of petrol were found in the dead woman’s room. As a result of the investigation, the body of Rosaline Fox was exhumed. Pathologist Bernard Spilsbury conducted an autopsy and claimed that the dead woman had been strangled before the fire started. There were no signs of smoke inhalation. 

Sidney Fox went on trial at Lewes in March 1930. Pathologist Bernard Spilsbury was adamant that Mrs Fox had been strangled and he claimed he saw a bruise on his throat. However, other doctors disagreed. They could not see the ‘bruise’ as it had disappeared as the body decomposed. It was possible, they argued that the ‘bruise’ seen by Spilsbury was just discolouration caused by the body decomposing. Spilsbury also had to admit that the hyoid bone (a small bone in the throat) was not broken. (It is usually broken during strangulation). 

Fox did not help himself. He was asked why he closed the door to his mother’s rooms, knowing it was on fire. Fox replied ‘so that smoke should not spread into the hotel’. 

The prosecution lawyer said ‘rather that your mother should suffocate in that room than smoke should get about in the hotel?’. Fox’s seeming callousness badly damaged his case. He was convicted of murder and he was hanged on 8 April 1930. 

Burke and Hare - they murdered people and sold the bodies

 Burke and Hare are often called grave robbers. In reality, they did not rob graves. Instead, they murdered people and then sold the victims’ bodies to surgeons for dissection. Today, many people donate their bodies to science but in the early 19th century, attitudes were very different. Most people were horrified by the idea of being cut up after they were dead. As a result, surgeons found it hard to find bodies to dissect in lectures. So some were willing to pay large amounts of money for dead bodies, without asking too many questions. Burke and Hare are believed to have murdered 16 people. 

William Burke was born in Ireland around 1792, and it’s believed he came to Scotland to work as a navvy on the canals. He eventually settled in Edinburgh, where he worked as a cobbler, repairing shoes. It’s not certain when William Hare was born. He was probably from Ireland. At any rate, by 1827, he owned a lodging house in Edinburgh and he had befriended William Burke. 

The murders began in stages. In November 1827, a boarder known as Old Donald died in Hare’s lodging house. He died owing £4 (a considerable sum of money in those days). Hare told Burke and they decided to sell the body to anatomists to recoup the money. They told the authorities that Old Donald was dead. A carpenter made a coffin for him. Burke and Hare filled it with bark (normally used for tanning). They sold the body to a surgeon, Dr Robert Knox, for £7 and 10 shillings (there were 20 shillings in a pound). So they made a handsome profit from his death.

The next step was to murder a man who was ill but still alive. A tenant called Joseph, a miller, fell ill with an infectious disease. That would drive away other tenants from the lodging house. The two men gave Joseph whisky, then suffocated him.

This time, Burke and Hare sold the body for £10. Suffocating him meant there were no marks on the body. When the body was dissected, it would not be obvious that the person had been murdered.

Burke and Hare began regularly killing people and selling the victims’ bodies. It’s not certain in what order they killed the victims, but the third victim was probably a woman named Abigail Simpson. In February 1828, she was lured to the lodging house and given whisky. She was then suffocated. Once again, they sold the body for £10. Over the next months, Burke and Hare continued luring people to the lodging house, giving them whisky, then suffocating them, and then selling the bodies. 

One of the victims was a mentally disabled man, James Wilson. He was called ‘Daft Jamie’. He was well known in Edinburgh. He was often seen begging. The unfortunate man was lured to the lodging house, where he was given whisky and suffocated. They sold the body, as usual, but this time several medical students recognised the dead person. Local people also noticed James was missing. Dr Knox likely suspected the truth because he ordered the immediate dissection of James’ body. Like so many other murderers, Burke and Hare became overconfident and started being careless.

The last victim was an Irishwoman named Margaret Docherty. She was murdered on 31 October 1828. Burke and Hare befriended her. She was invited to stay at the lodging house. Two other lodgers, James and Ann Gray, were told they must move out to make room for her. Margaret Docherty was suffocated in the usual way and her body was hidden under some straw. The Grays returned the next day to collect their belongings. They were left alone in the house and they looked under the straw, discovering the dead body. 

The Grays immediately alerted the authorities but while they were away, Burke and Hare removed the body and took it to be dissected. 

On 3 November, Burke and Hare were arrested. But the authorities were not sure if they could secure convictions.

So Hare was offered immunity from prosecution if he turned King’s evidence, that is if he testified against Burke. On 25 December 1828, William Burke was found guilty of murder and he was sentenced to death. 

He was hanged in public in Edinburgh on 28 January 1829. Burke’s body was publicly dissected, as his victims' bodies were. His skeleton was given to the Anatomical Museum of the Edinburgh Medical School. 

William Hare moved to England. What happened to him after that is not known. No action was taken against the surgeon, Dr Robert Knox.

The dreadful crimes were remembered in a rhyme:

‘Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief, Knox the boy that buys the beef’