Post by Grace Gunness on May 23, 2008 16:57:22 GMT -5
((WARNING - Contains some graphic content in the History))
NYC's most famous and feared Serial Killer.
Full Name: Grace Belle Gunness
Newsie name: none - but she is sometimes known as "Gracy G" or "Belle's Ghost" or whatever crazy people make up.
Name origin: Her name.
Age: 18 almost 19
Gender: female
Birthplace: Indiana
Currently Living: Queens, NY
History: You may have heard the frigthening story of the great Belle Gunness - and if you havn't, then here it is:
Unlike most female serial killers, Belle didn’t poison her victims. Instead she slaughtered them.
Belle was a 42 year old Norwegian immigrant. She purchased her Indiana property in 1902 with an insurance settlement from her first husbands death. He had died suddenly in convulsive agony, as did her first two born. The symptoms were signs of strychnine poisoning but the doctors who examined the bodies found nothing suspicious.
After moving to La Porte, she married a young widower, Peter Gunness. Only nine months after they wed, he was killed when a cast iron grinder fell from the stove and stuck him between the eyes. That’s what Belle said anyway. The neighbors didn’t really buy into the story and often claimed that Belle had murdered her knew husband. As with her previous husband, Belle collected another insurance payment.
Over the next six years, a number of men found their way to Belle’s country home. Some were hired hands and others were well off bachelors. One thing all the men had in common was they all vanished without a trace.
In the early morning of April 27, 1908, the Gunness farm house caught fire and burned to the grown. When the blaze was finally put out, the firemen were shocked to discover the remains of four people, three children and one adult woman, stacked in the cellar. Though badly burned, the children were identified as the three youngest of Belle’s children. They assumed the fourth corpse was Belle herself but positive identification was impossible. The body had been decapitated and the head was nowhere to be found.
Suspicion fell on a disgruntled farm hand named Ray Lamphere who was charged with murder. Searchers kept looking for the missing head but it was never found. What they did find though shocked the nation and earned Belle Gunness everlasting infamy.
A dozen butchered bodies lay buried around the property. Some where found in a chicken yard, a privy fault and in a rubbish pit. Each body was carved similar to a turkey. The heads had been cut off, the arms removed from the sockets, legs were sawed off at mid-thigh.
Naturally the discovery of such a nature drew curious onlookers. The Sunday after the discovery, 10,000 people made their way to the property, some came from as far away as Chicago. Families wandered around the farm as if they were on vacation. Vendors had set up stands selling drinks and food.
People have their doubts though that the headless body found was in fact Belle’s. One difference was that the body only weighed 73 pounds. Lamphere himself claimed that Belle had faked her own death and ran away with $100,000 in tainted money. Officially though Belle Gunness was declared dead. Like Elvis though, many “sightings” were reported over the years.
One of her children survived.
One lone boy was able to escape his mothers torment. Toby, grew up normally (except for the trauma of his childhood) and married. He told stories of his mother to his children to scare them. His wife, Carysse, had twins - a boy and a girl. The girl she named Grace Belle, after the uncanny likeness in personality she seemed to have in her childhood, and the boy she named Calvin Finn. Carysse and Toby perished one sad day in a mill fire in the small town they were living in. At the time, Grace and Calvin were 13 years old. They moved themselves to a train yard, and soon found themselves quite accidentally in NY.
All Grace's life, she had an unusual attraction to killing things - and thats what started it. When she didn't get her way - she would get rid of the human involved. The only person who is guaranteed to remain unharmed is her brother Calvin.
Hair Color: Mahogany Brown
Hair Style: Very long and ragged.
Eye Color: Light Hazel
Skin Color: Tanish, white
Height: 5'2"
Weight: 110 lbs
Clothing Style: Quite well put together for such little provisions.
Items owned: The norm.
Troubles: Well, I would say that killing people is a bit of a trouble.
Fears: Betrayal of her brother and/or her brothers death. Death itself.
Siblings: Calvin Finn
Parents: Carysse and Toby
Grandparents: Peter and Belle Gunness
NYC's most famous and feared Serial Killer.
Full Name: Grace Belle Gunness
Newsie name: none - but she is sometimes known as "Gracy G" or "Belle's Ghost" or whatever crazy people make up.
Name origin: Her name.
Age: 18 almost 19
Gender: female
Birthplace: Indiana
Currently Living: Queens, NY
History: You may have heard the frigthening story of the great Belle Gunness - and if you havn't, then here it is:
Unlike most female serial killers, Belle didn’t poison her victims. Instead she slaughtered them.
Belle was a 42 year old Norwegian immigrant. She purchased her Indiana property in 1902 with an insurance settlement from her first husbands death. He had died suddenly in convulsive agony, as did her first two born. The symptoms were signs of strychnine poisoning but the doctors who examined the bodies found nothing suspicious.
After moving to La Porte, she married a young widower, Peter Gunness. Only nine months after they wed, he was killed when a cast iron grinder fell from the stove and stuck him between the eyes. That’s what Belle said anyway. The neighbors didn’t really buy into the story and often claimed that Belle had murdered her knew husband. As with her previous husband, Belle collected another insurance payment.
Over the next six years, a number of men found their way to Belle’s country home. Some were hired hands and others were well off bachelors. One thing all the men had in common was they all vanished without a trace.
In the early morning of April 27, 1908, the Gunness farm house caught fire and burned to the grown. When the blaze was finally put out, the firemen were shocked to discover the remains of four people, three children and one adult woman, stacked in the cellar. Though badly burned, the children were identified as the three youngest of Belle’s children. They assumed the fourth corpse was Belle herself but positive identification was impossible. The body had been decapitated and the head was nowhere to be found.
Suspicion fell on a disgruntled farm hand named Ray Lamphere who was charged with murder. Searchers kept looking for the missing head but it was never found. What they did find though shocked the nation and earned Belle Gunness everlasting infamy.
A dozen butchered bodies lay buried around the property. Some where found in a chicken yard, a privy fault and in a rubbish pit. Each body was carved similar to a turkey. The heads had been cut off, the arms removed from the sockets, legs were sawed off at mid-thigh.
Naturally the discovery of such a nature drew curious onlookers. The Sunday after the discovery, 10,000 people made their way to the property, some came from as far away as Chicago. Families wandered around the farm as if they were on vacation. Vendors had set up stands selling drinks and food.
People have their doubts though that the headless body found was in fact Belle’s. One difference was that the body only weighed 73 pounds. Lamphere himself claimed that Belle had faked her own death and ran away with $100,000 in tainted money. Officially though Belle Gunness was declared dead. Like Elvis though, many “sightings” were reported over the years.
One of her children survived.
One lone boy was able to escape his mothers torment. Toby, grew up normally (except for the trauma of his childhood) and married. He told stories of his mother to his children to scare them. His wife, Carysse, had twins - a boy and a girl. The girl she named Grace Belle, after the uncanny likeness in personality she seemed to have in her childhood, and the boy she named Calvin Finn. Carysse and Toby perished one sad day in a mill fire in the small town they were living in. At the time, Grace and Calvin were 13 years old. They moved themselves to a train yard, and soon found themselves quite accidentally in NY.
All Grace's life, she had an unusual attraction to killing things - and thats what started it. When she didn't get her way - she would get rid of the human involved. The only person who is guaranteed to remain unharmed is her brother Calvin.
Hair Color: Mahogany Brown
Hair Style: Very long and ragged.
Eye Color: Light Hazel
Skin Color: Tanish, white
Height: 5'2"
Weight: 110 lbs
Clothing Style: Quite well put together for such little provisions.
Items owned: The norm.
Troubles: Well, I would say that killing people is a bit of a trouble.
Fears: Betrayal of her brother and/or her brothers death. Death itself.
Siblings: Calvin Finn
Parents: Carysse and Toby
Grandparents: Peter and Belle Gunness
