DNA Tests on Possible Skeleton of Belle Gunness, Serial Killer from 1900s

By Margaret Lyons in News on Feb 12, 2008 5:38PM

Forensic anthropology students at the University of Indianapolis have exhumed what may or may not be the body of Belle Gunness, a La Porte, Indiana serial killer from the turn of the century. Some say Gunness killed herself in a kerosene-soaked fire that burned down her farmhouse, but others say she staged that and escaped. Now, forensic anthropologists are going to test DNA from the exhumed headless skeleton again saliva from an envelope from a letter Gunness sent one of her eventual victims. Wowsers.

The great-granddaughter of Gunness's sister allowed the exhumation, and she doesn't expect the remains to belong Gunness.

Gunness had "lured at least 12 men with lovelorn advertisements in a Norwegian newspaper and sexually suggestive correspondence," according to the Trib, and one of those unfortunate fellow's brothers came to La Porte to look for him. He demanded the police investigate Gunness's farmhouse, and lo and behold, they discovered 11 dismembered bodies. Gunness poisoned her victims with strychnine and then butchered their bodies, and no one knows how many victims she really had--authorities never thoroughly investigated her property, so for all anyone knows, there are still undiscovered skeletons decomposing near her one-time residence.

DNA results will possibly put an end to the mystery of how the most prolific female serial killer died...or maybe it'll just open up a new, morbid chapter of the story. [Trib, Crime Library, La Porte County Historical Society, Discovery Channel]