Tuesday, March 1, 2016

BOOK REVIEW # 2016-034 - BELLE GUNNESS: THE TRUE STORY OF THE SLAYING MOTHER


I received an mobi.file [KINDLE] copy of this book from the author through a recent giveaway he had on LibraryThing and the following is my honest opinion.

We usually think of an adult female as being quite gentle and demure especially between the years of the 19th and the 20th centuries in Norway.  However, Belle Gunness turned out to be a pure epitome of the total opposite.

According to an unverified account at the age of eighteen she attended a dance while pregnant where she got kicked by a male and wound up having a miscarriage.  Naturally given the time this incident took place, since this individual came from a wealthy family, and she came from the working class family, he was never prosecuted by the Norwegian authorities.

This incident, in all probability, must have been the catalyst which totally changed her personality from being sweet and innocent to being maniacal revengeful towards practically everyone around her.

After moving to Illinois and becoming a pig farmer her reign of terror became unbeknownst to any of her nosy neighbors by committing fraud, thefts, and murders. She lured her unsuspecting male victims by placing newspaper ads, claiming she was looking for love from the right man and that she was wealthy. Once a suitor fell for her ploy they became her next victim and she got all of the money. Not only did men fall victim to her diabolical schemes, women and children also met their fate at her hands.

Those victims who didn’t get buried under the pig pen had their bodies chopped up and fed to her pigs in the middle of the night. Soon after she claimed her 48th victim a fire engulfed her farmhouse burning it to the ground. In the ashes they found her three children and the body of a decapitated of a woman.

Since the body couldn’t be identified the author in his description for his book; writes the following:

Did Hell’s Belle finally meet her match in the form of Ray Lamphere, the man accused of the arson and murder, or did she fake her own death? Was she the woman arrested for murder decades later?

For having written of one his best books in his Historical Serial Killers and Murderers [True Crime by Evil Killers] I’m giving this addition 5 STARS.


UK:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01C36O7P2

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