Further reading for Belle Gunness/Herb Baumeister:
Hell’s Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men
Belle Gunness was born in 1859 in Norway, she stayed there with her family, tenets on a small farm, until 1881 when at the age of 21 so moved to Chicago and worked as a servant until she married.
She and her husband lived in a small hip one in Chicago until it burned down. With the insurance money they opened a candy store, then the candy store mysteriously burned to the ground. With the insurance money, they bought a nicer house. It appears that Belle and her husband could not have biological children, so they too care of foster children, two of these children died under Belle’s care apparently of “colitis” or maybe she poisoned them.
Belle’s husband did have a life insurance policy, but she said it was too small, so he took out a larger one, and it just so happened that on the day the two policies overlapped he mysteriously died (seeing any trends here?) with this insurance money Belle packed up her 3 remaining foster kids and bought a farm.
In 1902 Belle married recent widower and father of 2 Peter Gunness, within a week of the marriage his youngest child died, 8 months later Peter died (under suspicious circumstances…you don’t say?) after her husbands death Belle began putting ads in papers searching for a reliable man to become a partner on her farm.
Multiple men would disappear soon after, after one of her suitors brothers became suspicious of his brothers death Belle’s farm house yet again mysteriously burnt down, inside were found the bodies of her three foster children and what was believed to be Belle’s body as well. But what is it really???
Good ole Herb…
Herb Baumeister is believed to have murdered over a dozen men in 1990, a resident of Indiana, he was under investigation but killed himself before he could be brought to trial.
In the early 90s the Indianapolis Police Department was investigating the disappearances of gay men all of similar appearance, they were contacted by a man named Tony claiming a man calling himself “Brian Smart” had killed his friend and attempted to kill him with a hose during an erotic asphyxiation session, Tony on another day spotted the man and was able to follow him and get his plate number.
This information of coarse led the police to Herb, whose wife at this point had become fearful of his weird mood swings and erratic behavior, to the point that she had filed for divorce. She therefore gave the police free reign to search their house and 18 acre estate, there they found the remains of eleven men (eight of whom were identified.)
Before they could arrest him, Herb shot himself in the head leaving a suicide not blaming his marriage and failing business for pushing him over the edge, he made no mention of the murders.
Episode 67
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