notes
I have been working on this piece for a number of years and it has gone through a few iterations. Most notably the overall look of the characters. As I originally started this work I based the characters on my own original designs based on their actual appearance in existing photographs. As I began moving forward I began to grow bored with the work, never a good sign when a creator does that, and I also had very little photo references for characters, particularly on those outside of the main orbit of the story. As I have done quite a bit of research on early 20th century comic strips and have lectured about the subject quite a bit so I thought it might be nice to base the work off of characters from that era. I will admit though, I did fudge a bit with the time as the majority of the characters are based on the work of Elzie Crisler (E. C.) Segar’s Thimble Theater which began in 1919 and was the birthplace of Popeye the Sailor ten years after the strip’s debut in 1929. The look of Belle Gunness’ character in her youth was obviously based on Olive Oyl (with a slight modification of her hairstyle) and, as an adult, based on Myrtle Sappo, another Segar character. As I go through noting various parts of this work, I will not only include where I found and edited information about the story but also the inspiration for the characters as they appear in this work. As an academic I try to be as factual as I can and where I have embellished or edited I will include in this section. I certainly have tried to keep the facts as they exist and have attempted to honor the victims of Belle’s crimes as best as I can. Without them, unfortunately, there would be no story. I owe a lot of my research to Lilian de la Torre's 1960 book The Truth About Belle Gunness., Richard Lindberg's 2011 Heartland Serial Killers:: Belle Gunness, Johann Hoch, and Murder for Profit in Gaslight Era Chicago, and Harold Schechter's 2018, Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men that came out right in the middle of me writing this story. I also was able to get a lot of useful information from the La Porte County Historical Society Museum. I highly recommend going if you are remotely interested in this story. Their website is linked https://laportecountyhistory.org/
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Now, let us begin.
Page 1 - 4: Ray Lamphere actually already suspected at this point that the Gunness children and, allegedly, Belle were dead due the fire at the Gunness farm. In one report it said he “...was hiding in a hollow tree at the edge of the woods. His first words after they told him what was wanted of him were, ’did they get the children out?’ He then said he had seen the fire but he did not start it.” (See references “Lamphere Under Charge of Murder.”)
Other sources state that he was at John Wheatbrook’s farm where he had been working and met deputies at the front door. He did ask a similar question. When he was asked by the deputies how he knew of the fire he said he had seen smoke coming from the house when he passed it. When asked why he did not call for help his response was, “I didn’t think it was any of my business.” (Schechter, 2018, p. 74)
The design of Lamphere is based on Mutt from Bud Fisher's iconic comic strip Mutt and Jeff. Sheriff Smutzer is based on Jeff.
Page 5: It has been speculated that Belle had escaped the fire leaving a headless, female corpse, possibly a woman from Chicago named Esther Worchowski, according to Heartland Serial Killers by Richard Lindberg from 2011, in her place in order to throw off investigators. I have included her holding the severed head to illustrate the point although it is thought that she had weighed the head down and tossed it into the pond behind the property. The design of Esther Worchowski is based on E. C. Segar’s character, the Sea Hag, from Thimble Theater.
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Page 9 - 11: Although this sequence is speculated it is partially based on the documentary, “Only Belle” and covered in the book “Heartland Serial Killers”. Also, to clarify, young Belle goes by her given name, Brynhild in this sequence. (Lindberg, 2011, p. 46)
As stated before, young Belle is based on E. C. Segar’s “Thimble Theater” (later “Popeye”) comic strip character, Oliver Oyl. The person she is with is based on Bill Barnacle, another character from “Thimble Theater” (not a buff version of Popeye as some have thought). In hindsight though I might have went with Bluto/Brutus/Sonny Boy (more on that character later).
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Pages 12 - 17: Again, based mainly on the documentary “Only Belle” and “Heartland Serial Killers”. “Although nothing could be proven to link the young woman to the death of her assailant in Norway, her personality markedly changed over time. She became increasingly morose and resentful...” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 47)
Characters at the dance were based on those from the after mentioned ”Thimble Theater” by Segar, as well as Mama from ”The Katzenjammer Kids” created by Rudolph Dirks in 1897 and is the longest running comic strip of all time. There is a fascinating history attached to the strip that, after many legal challenges, resulted in two different versions of the comic being created by two rival comic strip syndicates. I highly recommend researching this. Also included is Mickey Dugan, better known as the Yellow Kid from “Hogan’s Alley” created by Richard F. Outcault. “Hogan’s Alley” set precedent becoming the first comic that had two rival versions being published by two rival newspapers. The term Yellow Journalism’s root is based off of this character and his yellow nightshirt as the papers, The New York World and The New York Journal American, were leaders in sensationalist news stories . The strip ran from 1895 - 1898. Also included are Bud Fisher’s Mutt and Jeff.
Page 18: Olina is based on the Myrtle Sappo character as well considering she is Belle,s older sister. When Olina relocates to the United States her name is Americanized to Nellie.
Page 19: Although this is all based on speculation and legend, if Belle did indeed poison this man, she most likely would have used strychnine as it was a common household and farm poison used to kill vermin during this time.
Page 20: Belle saved up her money over the course of three years and Nellie (Olina) sent Belle some money to help her emigrate to the United States. Most sources, including Belle herself, state that she arrived in the U. S. in September 1881. “Brynhild Petersen, as she identified herself to the immigration authorities, boarded the Steamship Tasso of the Wilson Line and made the Atlantic crossing...on September 8, 1881.” (Lindberg, 2011, pp. 47-48)
The Statue of Liberty was not dedicated until October 28, 1886 but I used artistic license to help establish her entry in the United States. At the time I made this page I was unsure if she emigrated to the U.S. through New York. Norwegians mostly came through New York but it was possible she could have entered through Boston, Philadelphia, or even through Canada first through Quebec City, Montreal, or Halifax. (Wikipedia, 2019)
Since I created this I have found through the brilliant podcast Last Podcast on the Left, a listener named Erin, who works as a research genealogist at Ellis Island, discovered that Brynhild Paulsdatter emigrated through Ellis Island in 1879. If you are interested in this story you should most definitely listen to episodes 373, 374, and 375 of Last Podcast on the Left. Episode 376 is something of an epilogue to the trilogy of episodes though and includes the information about Belle entering through Ellis Island. A link is included in the references.
Page 21: Random character designs mainly based on E. C. Segar’s work. The immigration officer is based a bit on the man from the Monopoly game, Rich Uncle Pennybags, created by Dan Fox in 1936. (Orbanes, 2013)
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Page 25: The image is based somewhat on the Wrigley Mansion located at 2466 North Lakeview Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. Although it was built in 1896 this scene takes place in the early 1880s. I like the house and since this part of the story takes place in Chicago I figured I would use it as a reference.
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Page 26 - 27: Although I have streamlined this somewhat, Belle met Mads Sorenson around the early part of 1884. After meeting, the two married much to her sister Nellie’s relief. Once married she finally got out of Nellie and Nellie’s husband, John’s house.
Belle and Mads were married by John Z. Torgersen who was the oldest Norwegian clergyman when he died in 1905. His obituary in the Chicago Tribune from November 12, 1905 was titled Cupid’s Noted Aid as he was credited with marrying 15,000 couples. I based his design on the work of Segar as well although his appearance does seem to have a little Wilford Brimley in him. In this telling I have him ask Belle if she was coming to church but there is no indication that she was a member of his congregation. I wanted to establish that she did work with children, possibly helping run a baby farm, and seemed to be a bit preoccupied with them. I go a bit further into that in a few more pages. It has been theorized that Belle was unable to have children and thus this contributed to her volunteering to work with Norwegian orphans. The documentary Only Belle touches a bit on that and Heartland Serial Killers makes a case that Belle was “...incapable of giving birth to a child of her own following the vicious assault as a young woman...” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 49).
As far as the dollar signs in her eyes, I wanted to show that Belle's main, if not only motivation for marrying was for money. “Money was her God.”, Nellie insisted. (Lindberg, 2011, p. 47)
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Page 28: In the late 1880s or early 1890s Belle and her sister Nellie had a falling out over Nellie’s daughter, Olga. Belle, most likely unable to bear children of her own, asked Nellie if she and Mads could adopt Olga. When Nellie refused the two women got into an argument in which “...Nellie and her sister broke off communication for many years...” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 49)
In 1891 a couple named Olsen lived near Belle and Mads. They had an eight-month old daughter and the mother was dying. Belle supposedly begged the dying woman to give her the daughter, Jennie. Anton Olsen, the father, crushed by the death of his wife and wanting to abide by her wishes, went ahead and allowed Belle and Mads to take his daughter. In later years, Anton remarried and tried to regain custody of Jennie but was strongly opposed by Belle. “I asked Mrs. Sorenson as she then had children of her own, to give Jennie up to me. She said she would but did not like to quite then. A second time, when I asked her to give Jennie up to me, she said she would not.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 28)
The character design of Anton was inspired by Segar but seems to look more like Elmer Fudd to me now.
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Page 29: Andrew Helgelien spent 10 years in a federal penitentiary for trying to rob and then burn down a post office. Upon his release he relocated to South Dakota to a farm next to his brother, Asle. Both of these men figure prominently later in the story. (de la Torre, 1960) (Kissel, Parks, &and Zebrowski, 2019)
The characters are based off of the comic strip Happy Hooligan by Frederick Burr Opper which debuted in 1899. Andrew is modeled after the title character and Alse is modeled after Happy’s brother Gloomy Gus.
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Page 30: In 1894 (although some sources say 1896 and as late as 1898) Belle and Mads had opened a confectionery store at Grand Avenue and Elizabeth Street (or Edward Street as written in Schechter’s Hell’s Princess) that “....burned down less than a year after its opening.” (Langlois, 1985, p. 5 and also see Shepherd, 2001, p. 16) They used the proceeds of the insurance payout to buy a house in the somewhat affluent Austin neighborhood. That house, also insured, caught fire in 1898.
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Some people speculate that Gunness was inspired to commit insurance fraud by H. H. Holmes but that is highly suspect. I think it is more a morbid wish by some people to connect these two villains like Doctor Doom and Prince Namor making a true crime version of an issue of Super Villain Team-Up.
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The firefighter character is based on Bill Holman’s comic strip firefighter, Smokey Stover that debuted in 1935.
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Page 31 - 34: This is an area of pretty deep speculation as there is no concrete evidence than any of this is true. I will say that every source material I have found does acknowledge that it is more than likely that Belle could not have children. There is also a lot of conjecture that Belle was either a part of, or operated her own “baby farm” including Heartland Serial Killers. William Boklund talked of these illegal organizations during his lecture at the La Porte County Historical Society Museum (see references) as well. I could spend a whole book in itself on what a baby farm is but, in essence, it is an illegal orphanage used to broker babies for profit. In the documentary, Only Belle, it is said that she volunteered helping take care of orphaned children at the Norwegian Lutheran Church. Either way, it seems likely that she was able to acquire children secretly and claim them as her own. In nearly all instances of Belle having children, people reported she was right back up and working as if nothing had happened and the children looked much older than a newborn should.
“Belle claimed that she gave birth to four children, but it struck the neighbors as exceptionally odd that the woman had no children of her own in the first eleven years of her marriage but had allegedly delivered four within the span of the next three years.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 50)
I can just picture Mads coming home from work with the news that his wife was pregnant, yet again, in a house full of babies. There is no evidence though that supports this idea.
For the life of me, I cannot remember what source I used for the design of the other woman on the page. Usually I write down the references on the back of the pages I drew but in this case, it must have been late and I must have been tired. The babies were, of course, modeled after Sweet Pea from Thimble Theater.
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Page 35 - 36: A man claiming to be Angus Ralston offered Mads a job in exchange for a promissory note for $700 dollars (20,000 dollars in today’s money) using the deed to their house as collateral. Needless to say, they were scammed and had to go to court in order to keep from losing their house. They won and kept their house but Mads had to go back to his night watchmen job at the Mandel Brother’s department store. (Schechter, 2018, p. 14)
The Angus Ralston character was an amalgamation of Bud Fisher's Mutt from Mutt and Jeff and Sidney Smith’s Andy Gump from The Gumps. I also feel like Belle channeled her inner Lucy from Peanuts with her reaction to realizing that they got ripped off and she blamed Mads wholly for their collective folly. It is fairly well acknowledged that Mads was pretty brow beaten by Belle. As one man said, ”What troubles existed between herself and her husband I did not know, but there is much ill feeling, and the man, a midget in comparison with his wife, seemed to fear her.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 49)
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Page 37: Caroline Sorenson was three-months old in August 24, 1896 when she passed away. Axel Sorenson was also an infant in 1898 when he died. Although both were said to have acute colitis, it is believed that these two children may have been victims of poisoning. In both cases, Belle collected insurance. (Lindberg, 2011, p. 51)
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Page 38: It is unclear when, but the Sorenson’s had begun taking in boarders, probably as a way to supplement Mad’s income. Although not depicted in this sequence, one of those boarders, Peter Gunness, will figure into the story quite importantly later on. Another figure, Doctor J. C. Miller, also played an important role in the Gunness story. Although the time line is unclear when he boarded with the Sorenson’s I felt it was important to at least acknowledge his role in the story. It also helps to illustrate the theme that Belle used her feminine wiles to manipulate men into compromising their morals.
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Doctor Miller's design is based on Frank Willard's character Moon (short for Moonshine) Mullins from the strip of the same name that ran from 1923 until 1991.
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Page 39: By 1900 there were three children still living in the house; Jennie Olsen, Myrtle Sorenson, and Lucy Sorenson. In 1900 the house in the Austin neighborhood caught fire but was salvaged by the fire department. The Sorenson’s were still able to collect on insured household goods roughly worth 650 dollars (roughly worth 19,850 dollars in today’s money). (Schechter, 2018, p. 15)
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Page 40 - 42: This is probably one of the more documented areas of Belle,s life and one of the more blatant coincidences in her story. In 1900 Mads had two life insurance policies; one set to begin on July 31st, 1900 for 3000 dollars and the other set to lapse on the same day worth 2000 dollars. Although there are different versions of what actually transpired that day, the general consensus is, Belle poisoned Mads to his death the day the two policies overlapped. In today’s money, that 5000 dollars would be worth 150,000 dollars.
In Harold Schechter's book, Hell's Princess the cause of Mads' death was determined to be a cerebral hemorrhage. In Heartland Serial Killers by Richard Lindberg the cause of death is an enlargement of the heart. (Schechter, 2018, p. 16 and Lindberg, 2011, p. 26)
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Page 43: Mad’s brother, Oscar Sorenson of Providence, Rhode Island, wanted to have his brother tested for poisoning but in those days, that request would have to be paid for by the requester. In this case it would have been 300 dollars that Oscar did not have. Oddly enough, the insurance companies did not pursue insurance fraud as vigorously as they should have in the later 1800s.
Oscar is based on the character Old Doc Yak in the comic strip of the same name by Sidney Smith of The Gumps fame. The secretary at the desk is modeled after Paw Perkins from Polly and her Pals by Cliff Sterrett that ran from 1912 until 1958.
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Page 44 - 45: Supposedly while visiting a relative in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, Belle settled on the idea of buying a farm somewhere away from the city. (Schechter, 2018, p. 18)
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“Belle effected a property swap with Arthur F. Williams, president of the Trade Circular Advertising Company...In exchange for the house in Austin, the Sorenson widow acquired the title to Williams’ sixty-acre farm just outside the business district of La Porte, Indiana, on McClung Road.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 28)
Belle’s cousin is based off of Aunt Mamie, another character from Frank Willard’s Moon Mullins comic strip. The character of Arthur Williams is somewhat based on Bill Holman’s Smokey Stover without a helmet. The newspaper clerk is based on Mr. Smythe from the strip The Smythes by Rea Irvin, more known for creating the character Eustace Tilley the mascot for The New Yorker Magazine. He also created the typeface used in the magazine’s title.
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Page 45: The property on McClung Road currently has a house built near the original foundation of the Gunness house. It is a quiet, lushly wooded area surrounded by large ponds and small lakes. The design of this house is based off of a blueprint from the May 8, 1908 issue of Chicago Journal. I found this copy in Lindberg’s Heartland Serial Killers. (Lindberg, 2011, p. 133)
The horse design is cribbed from Billy DeBeck’s Spark Plug, the racehorse from Barney Google that started in 1919 and was retitled Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. Spark Plug is often referred to as the Snoopy of the 1920s. After 100 years the comic strip, now shortened to Snuffy Smith, still runs today.
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Page 49 - 51: Peter Gunness was a boarder of the Sorenson’s at some point (see the notes on page 39). Belle had discovered that he was recently widowed with two young daughters and reached out to him. He soon relocated to the farm in La Porte with his daughters, a seven-month old infant and five-year old Swanhilda (or Swanhild depending on the source.)
A ”gibface” is Victorian era slang for “An ugly person, especially one with a heavy lower jaw”. Thanks to Thrillist and the article Brutal Insults From the 1800s That Demand a Comeback by Kristin Hunt. I have always wanted an excuse to use that insult and here was my one and only chance.
The character design for Peter Gunness is based on Walt Wallet from Gasoline Alley by Frank King and is currently the second longest running comic strip in the United States behind the Katzenjammer Kids. The strip is unique in that the characters age in real time so Walt is currently well beyond 100 years old. Swanhilda was a female version of a character based on Nemo from Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay from 1905 until 1926. At this point in the story Jennie (shown to Belle’s left in the top panel of page 42) is about twelve-years old.
In every instance, if I can, I try to honor the deceased by acknowledging them. In the case of the infant Gunness, I have not been able to find any source material that gives the girl’s name. For this, I am very sorry.
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Page 52: This page is complete speculation and used to heighten dramatic effect. I did try to bookend the first scene in the house with Belle and her children and this scene with Peter and Swanhild. I could picture Belle seething when attention was given to anyone other than her.
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Page 53 - 55: This is pretty deeply documented in a variety of sources. At this point in La Porte County’s history there had been a number of instances that started to draw negative attention on this small community. The Indianapolis Journal published an article titled Crime of High Degree in the December 17, 1902 issue. The subhead of the article states ”It seems to be running rampant in Laporte [sic] county. Half a Dozen Mysterious Cases Ending Early Tuesday with What May Prove a Murder”. The article goes on to state, ”A carnival of crime seems to be reigning in Laporte [sic] county.” It lists a number of crimes including a holdup, a man killed on a train, an attempted poisoning, ”...and the latest development was the death to-day [sic] in a mysterious manner of Peter S. Gunness, a young farmer...According to the officers, there are strong indications of foul play in the death of Peter Gunness, who lived with his wife and her four children one mile north of Laporte [sic]... Mrs. Gunness notified Coroner Bowell at 3 o’clock this morning that her husband was dead. The officer found Gunness with a fractured skull and badly scalded. The widow claims that the roller from a sausage grinder fell from a shelf on his head and that a kettle of hot water was spilled over him, both occurring as he (stopped) to pick up a pair of shoes near the stove about 11 o’clock last night. The woman says she did not see the accident, because she was in another room, and says her husband did not complain of any bad effects. She alleges she was aroused sometime after midnight and found him dead.
"The woman came here from Chicago a year ago with four children and seemingly with plenty of money. Gunness came from Minneapolis in March, the couple marrying soon afterwards. The officers declare another man figures in the case.”
Although there are some errors in the article, Belle came to La Porte with 3 children and not four for example, there is nothing in any of the research that suggests there was another man involved. As this was the era of yellow journalism though, it was more than likely embellished to add to the sensationalism of the story.
In Schechter’s book he describes Swan Nicholson and his son, Albert, Belle’s nearest neighbors, as being woken in the middle of the night by Jennie. When they arrived Swan sent Albert to get the county coroner, Doctor Bo Bowell. When Doctor Bowell arrived he “...could tell at once that Gunness had been dead for some time. The body was already growing rigid. The back of his head bore an ugly wound, thickly caked with blood, and his nose was broken and bent to one side. Bowell’s immediate impression was that the man had been murdered.” (Schechter, 2018, p. 20)
The character of Doctor Bo Bowell is based completely on Professor Wotanozzle, a character from E. C. Segar’s Sappo. Professor Wotanozzle is one of my personal favorites and he immediately came to mind when it came time to design Doctor Bowell.
I probably should have talked about the “Sappo” strip earlier but here is a good opportunity. It was a Sunday topper to Segar’s ”Thimble Theater”. Originally, it started in 1920 as a stand-alone Monday - Saturday strip titled ”The Five-fifteen”. In 1926 it was retitled ”Sappo” based on the characters John and Myrtle Sappo. Eventually, after the introduction of Professor Wotanozzle, the strip’s focus was primarily on his inventions. (Wikipedia, 2019)
Both the Nicholson’s were designed based somewhat on Billy DeBeck’s Barney Google and Snuffy Smith characters. As I inked it though, Albert Nicholson began to resemble Marc Hansen’s excellent character, Ralph Snart. Do yourself a favor and visit his website at https://marchansenstuff.com/.
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Page 56 – 57: “Belle, whose ‘condition bordered on hysteria’ was led back into the kitchen and seated in a chair.” (Schechter, 2018, p. 20) Most accounts agree that Belle seemed to be overacting in her response to her husband’s death.
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Page 58: The afternoon of December 16th, 1902, Doctor Bowell performed an autopsy on Peter Gunness aided by another local physician, Doctor H. H. Martin. “Bowell found ‘no evidence of scalds or burns on the entire body...[Gunness’] nose was lacerated and broken, showing evidence of severe blows (or the result of falling upon a blunt article such as the edge of a board.)...[The most significant wound was] “a laceration through the scalp and external layer of skull about an inch long, situated just above and to the left of the occipital protuberance. Upon removing the pericranium, there showed a fracture and depression of the inner plate of the skull at a point corresponding to the external lacerations, There was also marked inter-cranial hemorrhage...Death was due to shock and pressure caused by fracture and said hemorrhage.” (Schechter, 2018, p. 21)
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Doctor H. H. Martin's design is based on Edgar Wheelan's character, Don K. Haughty, from his comic strip, Minute Movies. (Blackbeard, Williams, Canaday, 1988, p. 136)
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Pages 59 - 62: On December 18, 1902 an inquest was held in regards to the death of Peter Gunness. All of this testimony is based on Schechter's Hell's Princess. (Schechter, 2018, pp. 21-28)
The narration is based on the transcripts from the inquest but the accompanying illustrations are what I imagined happened based on the evidence. When Belle was asked by Bowell about her relationship with Peter, "You always lived happily together, you and him?"
She replied, matter-of-factually, "As far as I know." (Schechter, 2018, p. 24)
The character of Louis Oberrich, Doctor Bowell's clerk is based on a random character from an old Barney Google strip by Billy DeBeck.
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Pages 63 - 67: Jennie Olsen was 12-1/2 years-old when she gave her testimony. Although Jennie claimed that she and Belle had not talked about what had happened to Peter, by all accounts, it was obvious that she had been coached. Doctor Bowell had then used this platform to quiz Jennie as to what actually happened to Mads as well, perhaps to at least acknowledge his suspicions regarding Belle and what he seemed to suspect was her murder-for-profit ways. ”Jennie poured out a breathless account of that day.” (Schechter, 2018, p. 26)
As the story moves forwards I am trying to portray Jennie beginning to mature. This plays a pretty substantial part later on in the telling.
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Page 68: During the questioning of Swan Nicholson, Doctor Bowell asks point-blank if he thought it was possible that Belle had killed her husband. "No, I never thought that, no sir. They be like a couple of children, and the same as the day they were married." Nicholson had also testified though that he knew virtually nothing of his new neighbors. (Schechter, 2018, p. 27)
A small article titled Death Due to Accident from page 6 of the December 20, 1902 issue of the Indianapolis Journal stated, "Coroner Bowell to-day [sic] announced that his finding in the case of the mysterious death of Peter S. Gunness would be that the deceased came to his death through an accident, for which Gunness alone was responsible...”
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Page 69: There is a bit to unpack here. If you notice, Belle is peaking between her fingers during the service and Albert Nicholson, standing front row, 2nd from her right, is glaring at her theatrics. ”During the preaching she sat moaning with her fingers before her eyes. Albert Nicholson could see, however, that she was peeking alertly between them to check the effect she was making.” (de la Torre, 1960, p. 45)
Most people probably suspected that Belle did indeed murder her husband but, as Marcus Parks from ”Last Podcast on the Left” so eloquently put it in part 1 of their Belle Gunness episode, “Part of what let Belle Gunness go for so long was Midwestern politeness...People just not wanting to call her on her shit and just saying, ‘Oh-kay.’” (Kissel, Parks, Zebrowski, 2019)
Albert Nicholson spent his time during the funeral sharing his opinion that Belle had murdered her husband. “Pa, told me to shut up.” (Schechter, 2018, p. 28)
In the last two panels I show Myrtle Sorenson talking with another child. If you remember page
52 you might have noticed that she was standing in the doorway during Peter’s murder. Although the incident where Myrtle supposedly told her friend this information happened in 1908, I wanted to include the quote and give the scene some context as well. “My momma killed my papa. She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died. Don’t tell a soul.” (Torre, 1960, p. 45) Also see Lindberg, 2011, p. 108.
A character key for each of the characters shown on this page follows.
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The character key is as follows:
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1 - Reverend George C. Moor based on Old Doc Yak by Sidney Smith (see notes for page 37 for more information on that character)
2 - Swanhilda Sorenson based on a gender swapped version of Little Nemo in Slumberland
3 - A random mourner based on George Bungle from The Bungle Family by Harry J. Tuthill
4 - Jennie Olsen. The design is not really based on anything but I am certain it is heavily influenced by Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame. I am trying to keep the characters based on strips around the time period this takes place (or at least the first half of the 20th century) but drawing her like this just happened organically. Peanuts premiered in October of 1950.
5 - A random character based on a drawing from S’Matter Pop? that ran from 1911 - 1940 by Charles M. Payne.
6 - Belle Gunness based on E. C. Segar’s Myrtle Sappo.
7 - Myrtle Gunness loosely based on Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie from the comic strip of the same name.
8 - A random mourner based on Maw Green also by Harold Gray, that headlined her own strip, a spin-off from Little Orphan Annie.
9 - Swan Nicholson based on Billy DeBeck’s Barney Google and Snuffy Smith.
10 - A random mourner based on Mr. Wicker from Gasoline Alley by Frank King.
11 - Doctor Bo Bowell based on Professor Wotanozzle by E. C. Segar.
12 - Albert Nicholson loosely based on the work of Billy DeBeck.
13 - Mrs. Nicholson based on Mrs. Wangles from The Bungle Family by Harry J. Tuthill
14 - A random mourner based on George McManus’ Ethelbert (a.k.a. Sonny) from Bringing Up Father.
15 - Random mourner based on Wellington J. Wimpy from E. C. Segar’s Thimble Theater.
16 - Peter Gunness’ legs. Character based on Walt Wallet from Frank King’s Gasoline Alley.
The girl talking to Myrtle in the last two panels is loosely based on characters from Lyonel Feininger’s The Kin-der-Kids that ran from 1904-1906. Feininger was known more for his connection to the German Expressionist movement, a member of the Berliner Sezession (or Berlin Secession as translated into English), and the first faculty member appointed by Walter Gropius to the Bauhaus. (Meggs and Purvis, 2016)
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Page 70 - 71: Gust Gunness, Peter’s brother, was aware that Peter had taken a life insurance policy for 2500 dollars (3500 depending on the source) payable to Swanhilda. Rightly so, Gust was concerned that Belle would try to get her hands on the insurance money. He was also concerned for the safety of his niece.
As far as whether he was married or not was completely fabricated by me as I was unable to find any information about Gust other than how he connected to the story.
Gust’s design was based on a grown up version of Skeezix Wallet, Walt’s adopted son from Gasoline Alley by Frank King. As I said earlier, Gasoline Alley was unique in that most of the characters aged in real time so Skeezix is currently an old man in the current comic strip. I based this character on Skeezix circa 1960. I based Gust’s wife’s appearance on Skeezix’s wife, Nina Clock Wallet, also from Gasoline Alley. I thought it was fitting to maintain the family connection.
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Page 72: When Gust asked Belle about the insurance money she explained that her deceased husband “... had turned the insurance policy over to a mining company for the purchase of stock and if that stock every amounted to anything, Swanhild would be a rich girl.” (Schechter, 2018, p. 30) (Also see Langlois, pp.56-57)
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Page 73: At some point Belle asks Gust if he would like to stay on and manage the farm for her. He secretly left in the middle of the night a few days after arriving with Swanhilda in tow. As you have seen if you have completed the entire story before reading the notes (and please do so if you enjoy surprise and suspense), Swanhilda is the only child that ever lived with Belle that managed to escape with their life. Had Gust stayed on he would have most likely have suffered the fate that many others who had stayed at the farm later on had suffered. (Schechter, 2018, p. 30)
This is a bit different than what was reported in ”Heartland Serial Killers”. Lindberg writes, “Failing in his attempt to hire a local attorney to sue Belle for a division of his brother’s 3,500 dollar life insurance policy intended to benefit the orphaned girl, Gust and his brother Carl contrived to remove Swanhilda by stealth methods. Under the cover of night, the brothers spirited her away from LaPorte [sic] to Edgerton, Minnesota.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 86)
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Pages 74 - 75: There was the belief that Belle was afraid she would lose the payout to Peter’s life insurance and so she began to take steps to make certain she could cement her claim to the money. She also still maintained ties to the Norwegian Lutheran Church and their orphaned children’s home. Most people speculate that Philip was not her biological child. “If Gunness had indeed managed to give birth to Phillip, she would have been a 44 year-old mother - not a physical impossibility, but nevertheless it seems rather unlikely. Midwife, Mary Swenson, told investigators that she remembered being called to Brookside Farm but arrived too late to assist the mother. When she set her eyes on little Phillip for the first time, she was astonished to find the child washed and clothed and looking much too old to be a newborn.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 85)
The cloaked figure handing Philip to Belle is based on the reaper character and copied from a still from the Mickey Mouse animated short The Haunted House from 1929 by Ub Iwerks. Philip, in this panel only, is loosely based on Mickey Mouse from the same still.
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Pages 76 - 78: This has been documented in many places but I particularly used Schechter’s Hell’s Princess to illustrate this incident. Belle began to feud with her neighbors regarding her allowing livestock to wander onto their properties. William Diesslin warned her to keep her calves off of his property or he would charge her for the use of his land. After he finally reached his limit he locked the calves onto his farm yard and charged her a dollar to get them back. Incensed by this perceived extortion, Belle found two of Diesslin’s cattle wandering along the road grazing and she herded them onto her property and locked them up. When Diesslin went to get them back she told him to pay her a dollar. “But you run them in here off the road!” Diesslin said and tried to open her gate anyway. Belle made Jennie run in and get her a revolver and, when Jennie handed her foster mother the gun, Belle pointed it at Diesslin and ordered him, “Don’t touch that gate.”
Diesslin paid her the dollar. (Schechter, 2018, p. 30)
Diesslin’s character design is based on Relentless Rudolph Ruddigore Rassendale from the strip ”Hairbreadth Harry” by Charles William Kahles. According to Don Markstein’s ”Toonopedia” website It ran from 1906 - 1940. There was a brief attempt at reviving the strip in 1967 but it only lasted for a few years.
Diesslin’s daughter, Dora, is based on a human version of an anthropomorphic cat girl from Mr. Jack by James Swinnerton from 1904. Mr. Jack ”...which ran in William Randolph Hearst newspapers from August 30, 1903 until 1935. He may be the first developed “funny animal” character, a type that has since become a staple in the comics medium.” (Wikipedia)
The cows are based on Floyd Gottfredson’s Clarabelle from his prolific run on the Mickey Mouse comic strip. Gottfredson probably drew Mickey Mouse more than anyone else including Ub Iwerks. He would go on to draw Mickey mouse comics for more than 45 years starting in the early 1930s. If you are at all interested in the people behind the creation of early Disney properties do yourself a favor and research Ub Iwerks and Floyd Gottfredson.
The panel of Belle pointing the revolver is based on the iconic cover of Daredevil Volume 1, Issue #184 published by Marvel Comics in 1982 by Frank Miller. I could not pass up the opportunity to homage that image although I will admit, I am most definitely way outside of Frank Miller’s league.
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Pages 79 - 80: This is again based on Schechter’s Hell’s Princess. In this case Belle's hogs had wandered onto Nicholson’s property a number of times and ate a lot of his corn. Having had enough of it, Nicholson locked them on his property and went to see the constable. Belle was fined $11 dollars, one for every head, and she was enraged. Ironically, if it had not been for Swan’s testimony she would most likely had been prosecuted for the death of her husband, Peter. (Schechter, 2018, p. 31)
The constable was based on Dick Tracy created by Chester Gould that debuted in the Detroit Mirror in 1931 and was distributed nationally by the Chicago Tribune. The strip was known particularly for Tracy’s unique rouges gallery and cool gadgets. It has been adapted in plethora of other media including radio, comic books, books, audio recordings, movie serials, and film. The strip and creators have been the recipient of numerous awards including the Reuben to Gould two times, and has featured work by mystery writer Max Allen Collins, as well as Mike Kilian and Dick Locher as both writer and artist. Since 2011 the strip has been written by Mike Curtis and illustrated by the prolific comic artist Joe Staton, the co-creator of E-Man among many other works. The current creators have paid homage and honored historic comic strips and comic books with guest stars such as Little Orphan Annie, in which they helped finish a storyline that ended with the cancellation of her strip, Will Eisner’s The Spirit, and many others. Read it by checking out the following link https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy.
The pigs were based mostly on Friz Freleng’s style sheet for the original Porky Pig design from around 1936. Freleng was a prolific and incredible animator and cartoonist known for his innovative and brilliant work on Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies for Warner Brothers. As you can see, when I was drawing this page, I lost count and have 12 hogs when there should only be 11.
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Page 81: Pure speculation. I do not know if Andrew Helgelien had a mule nor, if he did have one, named it Bessie. I just wanted you to remember he’s out there. Bessie’s design was based on Billy DeBeck’s Spark Plug from ”Barney Google”. I just lengthened the ears.
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Pages 85 - 87: I wanted this sequence to demonstrate Belle’s ability as a butcher as well as her strength. “People remembered her ‘large, grotesque’ hands, ideally suited to slicing up pig carcasses and cooking up ham, bacon, and pork shoulders. On butchering days the men from the adjoining farms would shoot the animal, bleed it, and gut it - leaving the women to take care of the rest. Belle, however, performed these messy tasks herself… ‘She was a strong enough woman to be able to kill a man of size if she took him unaware, ‘ opined Cook County Corner Peter Hoffman. ‘As to her ability to cut them up afterwards she needed no practice as a skillful surgeon to accomplish that. The woman was simply a good carver.’” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 83)
As to how a hog is butchered, I used the website https://www.backwoodshome.com/hog-butchering/ for a step-by-step walk-through on the process. Now I know literally, how the sausage is made.
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The pig design is based off of a Nancy comic strip from 1943 by Ernie Bushmiller. I found the strip on an article on the Comic Journal’s website titled Seeking Salivation! Food in Early Comics by Paul Tumey. (Tumey, 2017)
Finally, the middle panel on page 74 is based on a Thimble Theater comic strip from October 1933 by E. C. Segar. I believe I first saw this shared on social media by the great cartoonist Bobby London, creator of Dirty Duck, and who had also worked on the Popeye newspaper strip from 1986 - 1992. The full strip has to be seen to be believed but it is brilliant. See more information and the strip by following the article from C. Martin Croker’s blog included in the bibliography or by going to this link here https://arglebarglin.blogspot.com/2006/06/bizzarro-comic-tales-4.html.
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Pages 88 - 92: I am not certain who Belle's next victims were, how they were killed, or the order in which they were killed. The order I am putting them in this work is based on Lindberg’s Heartland Serial Killers and Whitney’s The Serial Killers Podcast.
Although it is unknown exactly how John Moo was killed I based this instance partially on de la Torre’s The Truth About Belle Gunness and the description on how Gunness first seduced Ray Lamphere. "In a few minutes there was a sound at the door that separated Ray’s room from Belle’s part of the house and then the door creaked open...With calm directness, this extraordinary woman lay down beside him and drew him to her ample breast. She stayed with him until the early dawn began to whiten." (de la Torre, 1960, pp. 86 - 88)
Almost all sources support Belle sneaking into the room she kept for farmhands and prospective husbands either to seduce, murder, or various combinations of those actions.
The design of John Moo is based on the younger version of Pat Patton circa 1940, when he was partners with Dick Tracy. The character was eventually promoted to the chief of police around 1948. As stated before, the Dick Tracy comic was created by Chester Gould who continued working on the strip from its inception in 1931 until 1977 where it was then taken over by mystery writer, Max Allen Collins and artwork by Gould’s assistant, Rick Fletcher.
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Pages 93 - 95: It is uncertain the order of John Moo, Peter Carlson, and Ole Budsburg’s murders but all three men disappeared in 1902. John Moo’s remains were found in the hog pen so I assume that she disposed of the other men in the same way. That is purely speculation on my part though. (Whitney, 2010)
Moe, who was from Elbow Lake, Minnesota, told people he was going “...east of Chicago”. He made two withdrawals for a total of twenty-two hundred dollars from the First National Bank in LaPorte to “...pay off a mortgage but that he had no one in LaPorte to identify him...” (Lindberg, 2011, pp. 105-106)
Peter Carlson was modeled after George McManus’s The Newlyweds from 1904. Considered the first family comic strip, it was eventually retitled Their Only Child. This strip was eventually eclipsed by McManus’ much more popular Bringing Up Father, also known as Jiggs and Maggie, about a family of Irish immigrants who win a million dollars in a sweepstakes. The humor comes from Maggie aspiring to live the lifestyle of the wealthy whereas Jiggs prefers to go back to his old, familiar ways. It ran from 1913 until 2000.
Ole Budsburg from Iola, Wisconsin lived with three grown sons that he told he was going to LaPorte to “run the farm” for Gunness. After the family started to get suspicious Gunness wrote his son, Matt, a letter inquiring about Ole. His remains were found on the Gunness property in May of 1908. (Lindberg, 2011, pp.106-107) He was based off of Daddy Warbucks from Little Orphan Annie by Harold Gray. The first illustration was based off of one of Gray’s panels and the other drawing was based off of the work of Leonard Starr. Harold Gray, a native of Kankakee, Illinois and graduate of Purdue University, created Little Orphan Annie in 1924 after assisting Sidney Smith on The Gumps. Gray was the primary creator on Little Orphan Annie from its inception until his death from cancer in 1968. Until 1974 the strip was done by other creators with little success before the syndicate, Tribune Media Services, decided to run reprints by Gray. In 1979, after the success of the Annie Broadway musical, comic book and comic strip artist, Leonard Starr, took over the strip with some success until 2000. After 86 years, in 2010, the strip was canceled, ending on a cliffhanger with Annie kidnapped and Daddy Warbucks under the impression that she may be dead. The story was eventually resolved in the Dick Tracy comic strip in a storyline that ran from the summer of 2013 until the fall of 2014. The character continues to appear periodically in the Dick Tracy comic strip.
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Page 96 - 98: Although I try to keep things pretty linear when it comes to telling this story the time line gets a little fuzzy between 1902 through 1908. As far as this telling is concerned it is 1903 at this point. That would make Jennie about 13 years-old. Although there is no documentation that Emil and Fred began helping out around the farm during this period I wanted to introduce them earlier in the story than they appear in any documentation I have been able to find. That does not mean that they had not been helping out during this period, only that I had not been able to find anything about them prior to 1906 - 07.
The maturing Jennie is based on the original look of Murat ”Chic” Young's Blondie from the comic strip of the same name. The original concept of the comic strip, which premiered in 1930, concerned a flapper and gold digger named Blondie who was in pursuit of a rich young playboy named Dagwood Bumstead. After Dagwood married Blondie he was cut off from the family and thus began the concept of the strip that has carried it ever since. Blondie is one of the longest running family strips and continues today, written by Chic Young’s son, Dean. Fittingly, Emil is based on Dagwood and Fred is based on Dagwood’s best friend and neighbor, Herb Woodley (Blackbeard, Williams, Canaday, 1977)
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Pages 98 - 99: Throughout my research the time line is unclear exactly when Belle began to solicit potential suitors through Norwegian language newspapers across the Midwest. I made the assumption that Belle had, after killing both children under her care and husbands, that she then moved on to farm hands. I can only speculate that she realized that this was not a productive use of her time and she began to come up with the plan that would cement her infamous legend. I also wanted to reflect her attitude that the wealthy were above common people as touched on at the beginning of the story (see page 14) ”To the wealthy, the rules do not matter to them! Our lives do not matter to them!”
The advertisement proof was traced over a copy found on the website ”Stay at Home Mum” and their article titled The Original Black Widow - Belle Gunness. I have seen this copy in many other places as well. This was a copy of one of the advertisements she had circulated throughout Norwegian language newspapers throughout the Midwest. (Allen, 2019)
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Pages 100 - 101: Again, I am uncertain of the order of who or how Belled killed her victims. Of the lists I have complied, there are many names of people that were suspected victims but unconfirmed. When able I try to include whether the person killed was confirmed definitively. From 1902 - 1904 there are very few names listed but there are twenty-nine names without a clear date of when they disappeared. Paul Ames is not listed on the two main lists I have used for victims of Gunness but he is mentioned in one of my main sources, Lillian de la Torre’s 1960 book, The Truth About Belle Gunness. Of the three men on this page, none of their deaths had been confirmed but rather suspected. Usually their friends or family would report similar stories that they supposedly went to a big farm in Indiana to marry a rich widow. T.J. McJenkins, was from Carsopolis, Pennsylvania. Andrew Anderson was from Lawrence, Kansas. Johann Sorensen was from St. Joseph, Missouri.
The character Paul Ames is based off of Andy Gump of the Gumps from the person who also created Ol’ Doc Yak, Sidney Smith.
I based McJenkins on Richard F. Outcault’s Mickey Dugan, more often referred to as the Yellow Kid, from Hogan’s Alley. The historical significance of this strip, that ran from 1895 - 1898, cannot be emphasized enough. As stated earlier, the term ”Yellow Journalism” was coined based on the character as the newspapers that ran it, Joseph Pulitzer’s The New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s The New York Journal, were often referred to as Yellow Kid Papers. Eventually shortened to “Yellow Papers”, the derogatory term yellow journalism sprang from the papers’ tendency to try and outdo one-another with more and more sensationalized stories.
The Hogan’s Alley newspaper strip was the subject of a lawsuit between Pulitzer and Hearst in regards to ownership when Hearst hired Outcault to bring the comic to his paper at a much higher rate than he had been making at Pulitzer’s paper. Setting president, the court ruled that both the papers could run the comic in their respective papers but only Pulitzer’s New York World could use the title Hogan’s Alley. Eventually both papers quit running the strip and Outcault went on to create Buster Brown. He also ran into the issue of ownership with the strip when he decided to move it to another paper. As precedent was set in the previous ruling, Outcault continued Buster Brown but left it untitled. The character of Mickey Dugan did make occasional appearances as well.
The Name Andrew Anderson reminded me so much of the professional wrestler Arn Anderson of Four Horseman fame. I tried to find a comic strip wrestler but Crusher Hogan, the character Spider-Man first tests his powers on, is the only one I could come up with. As his first appearance was in 1963, well beyond my arbitrary, pre-1950s cutoff, I went with the most famous comic strip boxer, Joe Palooka, created by Ham Fisher in 1930. The comic strip made Fisher wealthy spawning a cottage industry around the character that included movies, radio shows, comic books, and television shows.
The third character, Johann Sorensen, was based off of one of Palooka’s rivals, Big Leviticus. Fisher had hired an assistant, the great Al Capp, who later went on to create Lil’ Abner, a strip that surpassed the popularity of Joe Palooka and made Capp a star. Fisher began to bad-mouth Capp which led to a 20-year feud culminating with Fisher being sanctioned by the National Cartoonists Society, an organization he helped found, for ”conduct unbecoming of a cartoonist”. This is a fascinating story and is touched upon in Al Capp: a Life to the Contrary by Michael Schumacher and Dennis Kitchen as well as Al Capp Remembered by Elliot Caplin.
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Page 102: I wanted to honor the victims so, instead of repeating the same scene over and over again I decided to create this montage. As I have said before, I am not certain in what order these people died or how they died. All I do know is that they were either killed by or presumed to have been killed by Belle Gunness. I have added an asterisk next to the people whose remains were never found.
• Andrew Schwindler* from Cincinnati, Ohio was based on Jiggs from Bringing Up
Father by George McManus that ran from 1913 - 2013.
• Charles Edmonds* (or Edmond) from Newcastle, Indiana was based on the Captain
from The Katzenjammer Kids created by Rudolph Dirks in 1897 and ran
continuously until 2006 distributed by Hearst’s King Features Syndicate. The strip
still runs today in reprints and is considered the longest running comic strip of all
time. Dirks ran into the same trouble that Outcault had with Hogan’s Alley and
Buster Brown when it came to ownership and so there were two versions of
the strip that ran in different newspapers. Dirks’ version distributed by United
Feature Syndicate, retitled The Captain and the Kids, ran from 1914 - 1979.
• Linder Mikkelsen* (or Nikkelsen depending on the source) was from Huron, South
Dakota and was also believed to be one of Belle Gunness’ victims. This character is
based off of George Bungle from The Bungle Family by Harry J. Tuthill. Running
from 1918 - 1945 and very popular domestic strip during its run.
• Ole Olson* from Battle Creek, Michigan. He is based on Uncle Willie from Frank Willard’s
Moon Mullins comic strip.
• Axel Gunderson* from Green Lake, Wisconsin. He is based on Captain Easy from
Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy created by the incomparable Roy Crane and later
written and illustrated by Leslie Turner. The strip, originally just a gag-a-day
comic featuring the adventures of Washington Tubbs III, began in 1924 and ran until
1988 after being retitled Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy and then finally just
Captain Easy. After a few years as a daily humor strip Crane changed focus into
it being more of a serialized adventure story, becoming one of the first
adventure comic strips alongside of Tarzan of the Apes and Buck Rogers and
introducing the rough-and-tumble Captain Easy in 1929. His popularity eventually led
to his own Sunday comic page adventures taking place outside of the daily comic
strip continuity. As the focus of the strip began to move more onto Captain Easy,
Wash Tubbs became a supporting character. Crane left the strip in 1943, handing it
off to his assistant and friend Leslie Turner, where he then eventually went on to create
and work on Buzz Sawyer distributed by King Features.
• Lee Porter* from Edinburg, Illinois. His design is based off of Vincent Trout (V.T.)
Hamlin’s Alley Oop syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) since 1932.
It features the adventures of a stone-age caveman and, after the introduction of
a time machine in 1939, began to feature Alley’s adventures in various periods in
history. It still runs today.
• Sam Hopping* from Harrison, Ohio. His design is a humanized version of George
Herriman’s Officer Bull Pupp from Krazy Kat. Krazy Kat, although not a
particularity popular comic during it’s time, was a favorite of William Randolph Hearst
and thus Herriman was given a lifelong contract to do with the comic what he
wanted. This comic was considered by some to have influenced both the Dadaists
and the Surrealists and had such diverse admirers as Willem de Kooning, Jack
Kerouac, and Umberto Eco. In this case, I have Hopping being killed by a brick, an
homage to Ignatz the Mouse hurling bricks at Krazy who misinterprets this action
as that of a deceleration of love.
• Olaf Svenherud from Chicago, Illinois. His remains were found in the Gunness pig
pen. He is based off of Henry by Carl Thomas Anderson which debuted in 1932 and
was distributed by King Features Syndicate until 2018. Featuring a mute, sometimes
mouth-less bald boy named Henry the character appeared in comic strips, single
panel comics, and alongside Betty Boop in a Fleischer Studios animated cartoon. In
comic books published by Dell in the 1950s Henry uncharacteristically does speak.
• Frank Brodright* from Medina, North Dakota. He is based off of Lee Falk’s Mandrake
the Magician distributed by King Features Syndicate from 1934 - 2013. An adventure
comic about a stage magician, Mandrake is assisted by Lothar, an African prince and
sometimes called the strongest man in the world. Some people credit Mandrake as
the first superhero. As Don Markstein’s Toonopedia states, ”The first super-powered,
costumed crime fighter in comics was not Superman. It was Mandrake the
Magician.” (Markstein, 2002)
• James Kane* from Tunnell, New York. He is based on Archie Andrews, the first
teenage humor comic character and published by MLJ Comics starting in 1942.
Created by publisher John Goldwater and artist Bob Montana, with input from Vic
Bloom, Archie and his friends would rival the popularity of superhero comics
eventually pushing aside the adventure heroes being published by MJL in favor of
the more lucrative teen comics stable at MJL. The comic character has seen
renewed popularity in part due to the Riverdale television show.
• Olaf Edman* from Neutral Isle, Pennsylvania. He is based on Uncle Bim from The
Gumps by Sidney Smith. There are a lot of annotations in this piece about Sidney
Smith but his impact on comics the first half of the 20th century is immeasurable.
• Gustav Thuns* from Castle Shannon, Pennsylvania, another victim presumed dead by
Mrs. Gunness’ hand. His character is based on Belgian born Herg’s (Georges Remi)
character Tintin from The Adventures of Tintin, the most popular European
comic of all time. Tintin is a boy reporter with a dog/sidekick named Snowy that
travel the world in a series of adventures spread across 24 graphic albums from
1929 - 1976. Noted for Herg’s clean-line style, and exciting story-lines, Tintin is a
character for all generations.
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Pages 103 - 105: William Mingay from New York, New York is believed to have been a victim of Gunness. He disappeared on April 1, 1904. In this sequence we have him knock out a few of Belle’s teeth during his struggle but there is no evidence that this happened. It was strictly for dramatic effect and to establish that Belle had a dental bridge put in by her dentist, Dr. Ira P. Norton. This will figure into the story much more prominently later.
The character design of William Mingay violates my rule of keeping the character designs based off of comic characters pre-1950s but I did this for a few reasons; Jim Davis, the creator of the Garfield comic strip and the character Lyman, is a fellow Hoosier, albeit on the other side of the state from Gunness and Lyman is famously an absent character from the Garfield strip. He is kind of like the Chuck Cunningham character, Richie Cunningham’s missing brother from Happy Days, disappearing mysteriously and ignored in continuity. Garfield, a strip about a cat, his owner, Jon Arbuckle, and Jon’s dog, Odie. Lyman was the original owner of Odie and, although he has made a few cameos over the decades, he really only played a significant role in the strip for a few months after his first appearance in 1978 and after 1981 he was rarely seen. By 1983 he was nearly completely gone with only a cameo for the strips tenth anniversary in 1988 and in a picture in a newspaper that Jon, Garfield’s owner, is seen reading in 2013. As of this writing, Lyman is a character appearing on the official Garfield website game Scary Scavenger Hunt. He also appeared on season 3 of the animated Garfield Show in a series of episodes titled Long Lost Lyman written by Mark Evanier.
Doctor Porter is based off of Rex Morgan M.D. from the comic strip of the same name. Created by Nicholas P. Dallis using the pen name of Dal Curtis in 1948 it still runs today, distributed by King Feature Syndicate, drawn and written by Terry Beatty.
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Page 106: Like the [previous montage page I am uncertain in what order these people died or how they died. Again, all I do know is that they were either killed by or presumed to have been killed by Belle Gunness. I have added an asterisk next to the people whose remains were never found.
• Charles Ermond* was from New Castle, Pennsylvania. His design is based on Phil
Fumble, Fritzi Ritz’s boyfriend from the self-titled strip of the same name. Fritzi
Ritz, created by Larry Whittington in 1922 was then taken over by a 20 year-old
cartoonist named Ernie Bushmiller in 1925. In 1933 Bushmiller introduced Fritzi’s niece,
Nancy into the strip and in 1938 the strip was taken over by the character and
retitled after her. Phil was a reoccurring character in both strips until he
eventually disappeared almost completely in 1968 before being reintroduced around
2012 by Guy and Brad Gilchrist who were working on Nancy at that point.
• Frank Riedinger* from Delafield, Wisconsin. He is based off of William Magar ”Boss”
Tweed, or at least political cartoonist Thomas Nast’s depiction of him. Nast,
probably the most important political cartoonist in American history, helped bring
down the corrupt Tweed political machine with his cartoons published in
Harper’s Weekly. Tweed famously is quoted, ”Stop them damned pictures. I don’t
care so much what the papers say about me. My constituents don’t know how to
read, but they can’t help seeing them damned pictures!” (Meggs and Purvis, 2016)
• George Berry* also thought to be a victim of Gunness. He is based off of Foxy
Grandpa created by Carl E. Schultze using the pen name of Bunny. The strip’s
premise centered on Foxy continually thwarting the efforts of his grandsons Chub
and Bunt as their attempt to prank him. It ran from 1900 -1902 in the New York
Herald and from 1902 - 1918 in the New York American.
• Christie Hillven* was also suspected of being a victim of Gunness. The character is
based off of Roy Crane’s Washington Tubbs III, also known as Wash Tubbs.
• John H. McJunkkin* another supposed victim of Gunness is based off of the Skipper
from Toonerville Folks by Fontanine Fox that ran from 1908 - 1955. It was a very
popular strip and was one of the stamps featured in the U.S. Postal Services Comic
Strip Classics stamp set released in 1995.
• Bert Chase* was also suspected of being a victim of Gunness. He is based off of a
Rube Goldberg character, also featured on the Comic Strip Classics stamp set. I
wanted to include something from Goldberg simply because of his importance in the
history of the comic strip medium. He did have a few reoccurring characters such
as Boob McNutt but nothing was an enduring as his Goldberg machines with
Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts. He was one of the founders of the National
Cartoonists Society and the Cartoonist of the Year award, the Ruben, was named
after him. He received many accolades during his lifetime including a Pulitzer Prize
for his political cartoons.
• S.B. May* was another supposed victim of Gunness. He is also based on an unnamed
character from a Rube Goldberg strip. I just liked the look and wanted to include
him as well. The second panel is based off of a notoriously famous cover of Crime Suspense
Stories, issue number 22 by Johnny Craig for E.C. Comics in 1954. (Jack, 2012)
• George Williams* was yet another person suspected of meeting his end by Gunness.
He is based off of Professor Hypnotiser by a cartoonist named Ed Carey that ran
from 1903 - 1905. His work was very influential to his peers and he probably
deserves more recognition than he has received. Barnacle Press hosts a few of
these strips on their site.
• Ludwig Stoll* was also thought to be a victim of Gunness. He is based off of
another drawing by Ed Carey of a character named Simon Simple.
• Augustus Gunderson* was another suspected victim of Gunness. He is based off of
a character named Mr. PeeWee created by Ed Flinn and revived by Harold Arthur
MacGill. It ran from roughly 1903 - 1904, with the premise of satirizing sensational
newspaper headlines in the era of Yellow Journalism.
•• A man only known as Hinkley* was also thought to be a victim of Gunness. He is
based off of Obadiah Oldbuck, by Swiss cartoonist Rodolphe Töpffer, and considered
to be the first comic book character. You can read it courtesy of Dartmouth
College though the following link: https://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/digital/
collections/books/ocn259708589/ocn259708589.html.
•• Chelyce Brown went missing in 1905. The remains were found in the Gunness pig
pen. Although I am not certain of the gender of the person (Chelyce is normally
considered a female name), I made the assumption that they were male based on
the assumption that Belle normally only killed males unless she had a practical
reason for it. I based the character design off of Ally Sloper, created by Charles H.
Ross and eventually drawn by his wife, Émilie de Tessier under the pen name of
Marie DuVal. There is an excellent journal article about the comic and character by
Roger Sabin in issue 7 of ”Image and Narrative”. You can access it by using the
following link: http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/graphicnovel/rogersabin.htm
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Pages 107-110: Olaf Lindboe (or Lindbloom) was from Wisconsin and moved from a farm in Rockefeller, Illinois in 1905 to take a job on the Gunness farm. He worked there from March through July of 1905 and made friends with a LaPorte local, Chris Christofferson. When Christofferson asked Gunness what happened to the now missing Lindboe she said he had taken a land grant in St. Louis and left abruptly. She had told another neighbor that Lindboe had ”gone back to Norway” to see King Haakon VII’s coronation. (Lindberg, 2011, p. 87)
Lindboe is based on the Olive Oyl’s original boyfriend, Harold Hamgravy from Thimble Theater by E.C. Segar. He was eventually replaced by Popeye the Sailor. Chris Christofferson is based off of Bluto/Brutus, Popeye’s most famous nemesis who first appeared in Segar’s Thimble Theater in 1932 . I have been wanting to bring the character into the story and, in honor of Kris Kristofferson the singer/actor, I wanted a character with a beard. There had been a lot of confusion about the character of Bluto/Brutus based on misunderstood concerns over copyrights. This issue was finally resolved in part by Bobby London who worked on the Popeye comic strip from 1986 - 1992 and completely clarified in 2008 when Bluto was revealed to be the twin brother of Brutus. There is a pretty good video posted on YouTube by The No Swear Gamer that helps clear things up you can see by checking out the following link at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyICZQh-24M.
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Page 111: Andrew Helgelein had discovered the Gunness personal advertisement in probably either the Skandomaven or, more than likely, the Decorah Posten, both Norwegian papers published in the United States. The latter was published out of Chicago where the former was nationally distributed. (Lindberg, 2011, p. 106)
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Page 112: As before I have added an asterisk next to the people whose remains were never found and were presumed killed by Gunness.
• Willy Buntain* from Clymers, Indiana went missing circa 1905. I started to really
struggle coming up with pre-1950s comic strip characters. Although I am certain I
am missing some important characters nothing was coming to mind. I went back to
prototype comic work and was reminded of Lucas Cranach the Elder and his book,
Passional Christi und Antichristi (Passional Christ and Antichrist) from 1521.
Cranach was a German Renaissance painter and woodblock printmaker who was also
an early convert to the new Lutheran religion. His work began to reflect his ideas
on corruption within the Catholic Church. This piece featured facing pages
that would have an image of Christ acting against something, such as tossing the
moneylenders from the temple, and contrasting the image with one of the Catholic
Church contradicting that action, such as taking money from their parishioners.
This image is from a wealthy parishioner standing near a table in front of a priest
that is piled with money. You can see a copy of this work thanks to Google and
Project Gutenberg at this link right here: https://books.google.com/books?id=NMQ_
Ar84DCcC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
• Olaf Jensen* from Carroll County, Indiana also came up missing around 1905 and was
presumed to have succumbed to Gunness. This character is based off of an image
called The Abbot from Hans Holbein the Younger’s Dance of Death series of
woodcut prints he began around 1523. The Abbot was created circa 1526 and was
published around 1538.
• Gustav Tgus* from Washington, Pennsylvania also disappeared in 1905. He is based off
of the great William Hogarth’s Tom Rakewell from his series, The Rake’s Progress.
William Hogarth, one of England’s most significant artists, could be considered to be
the first cartoonist. He created a series of moralistic works such as Marriage A-la-
Mode, A Harlot’s Progress, and the after-mentioned A Rake’s Progress that told
stories sequentially using words and pictures. In A Rake’s Progress, Tom Rakewell is
a ne’er-do-well son of a wealthy merchant who, over a series of eight paintings,
squanders his inheritance on prostitution, gambling, and excess living, before ending
up in an insane asylum. Hogarth’s career began as a painter and satirist that poked
fun of the establishment before eventually being appointed Serjeant Painter to the
King in 1757.
• George Berry* from Tuscola, Illinois also went missing in 1905. Herman Konitzer*
from Chicago, Illinois disappeared in January 1906. They are based on Max and
Moritz by Wilhelm Busch, a German painter, poet, and caricaturist. Although
written in 1865 the Max and Moritz stories are still shared to German children
today. It is generally considered that these stories inspired Rudolph Dirks in the
creation of the Katzenjammer Kids. In the panel with the word ”Milled!” on top
is a recreation of one of the final images from Busch's story. As the story ends,
the mischievous boys are ground into bits by the town miller and fed to some
ducks.
Here you see the bits post mortem,
Just as Fate was pleased to sort ‘em.
Master Miller’s ducks with speed
Gobbled up the coarse-grained feed.
You can read the full story at this link here:
http://www.davidgorman.com/maxundmoritz.htm
• Edward Canary* from Pink Lake, Indiana came up missing around 1906. He is based off
of an image of Spring Heeled Jack. This illustration is based off of the cover of
Spring-heel’d Jack: The Terror of London from 1867.
• John O. Moe* came from Elbow Lake, Minnesota around 1906. His appearance is based
off of Utah a supporting character from the comic strip Little Joe created by
Ed Leffingwell. It ran from 1933 - 1972.
•• Charles Neiburg* disappeared around June 1906 and is believed to be another of
Gunness’ victims. He is based off of Koko the Clown created by Max Fleischer and
was the main character of the Out of the Inkwell cartoon series that ran form
1918 - 1929. Max had his brother Dave dress is a clown costume, filming him and the
used to film to trace over using the Fleischer’s pioneering Rotoscope. This technique
is still used today although through digital means. It creates a fluid, realistic illusion
of movement that is sometimes jarring but nearly always well done. The
”Frightening” panel is taken directly from a still of Betty Boop in Snow White from
1933. This scene has Koko the clown singing Cab Calloway’s ”St. James Infirmary
Blues” and is a rather unsettling piece of animation. You can see it by following
this link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlLHZruDCAA
• Olaf Jensen* was thought to have been killed by Gunness around 1906. He is based
off of an anthropomorphic Felix the Cat. Felix debuted in 1919 in an animated short
as Master Tom. The character was popular enough that the Sullivan Studios,
owned by Pat Sullivan, continued to use the character that was animated by Otto
Messmer. In 1924 the character was redesigned by animator Bill Nolan giving him the
look that we know today. The ”Chonk” panel is based off of a panel from Robert
Crumb’s infamous Death of Fritz the Cat story he made in response to the
animated movie featuring his character, Fritz.
• Henry Bizge* disappeared in June 1906. He is based upon Bosko, an animated
character created by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising in 1929 and starred in 39
Looney Tunes shorts by Warner Brothers. As Harman and Ising retained
ownership of the character they took him with them when they left Warner
Brothers in 1933. The character is somewhat problematic as, although his race is
somewhat ambiguous, his earliest appearances can be considered a racial stereotype.
• Ole B. Budsberg* from Iola, Wisconsin was presumed to have been a victim of
Gunness. I have seen his disappearance listed as both December 1902 and 1907. For
the purposes of this I have opted to have him disappear in 1907. He is based off of
Lee Falk’s second comic strip character, The Phantom. The ”Stab!” panel is based
off of one by Wilson McCoy, the second illustrator of the Phantom comic strip.
• T.J. Tiefland* was thought to be another of Gunness’ victim around 1907. His based
off of the Fleischer Brother’s animated Superman. Do yourself a favor and look
those cartoons up on YouTube. The following panel is based off of Curt Swan and
George Klein’s cover to Superman volume 1, issue number 149 from November 1961.
In this ”Imaginary Story”, Lex Luthor gains the trust of Superman only to
trick him into being poisoned by Kryptonite. This was the first Death of Superman
written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, predating the more familiar story by
31 years.
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Pages 113 - 119: This sequence has a slightly altered timeline as to events as documented. Story-wise, in order to keep things clear, it made more sense to me to put these events in this order. This is also why I have such an extensive section of notes here. As you will note on the previous page, the dates run from 1905 - 1907. In the case of Gurholt, he came up missing in August of 1905. In Jennie’s case it was around Christmas of 1906.
In Lindberg’s Heartland Serial Killers Greening states, “Mrs. Gunness received men visitors all the time. A different man came nearly every week to stay at the house. She introduced them as ‘cousins’ from Kansas.” In the same book Christofferson talked of how he had helped carry Henry Gurholt’s trunk upstairs. In Schechter’s book he quotes Greening, "...there were about fifteen trunks, and one room was packed full of all kinds of men’s clothing. Mrs. Gunness said that the cousins had left their clothes, and she wasn’t certain they’d be back for them.”
In this sequence I added Christofferson seeing Lindboe’s trunk more for dramatic effect than anything else. There is no evidence that he had spotted anything of the sort. It is interesting though that had some of these people spoke to each other about Lindboe and Jennie maybe they would have discovered that she had been telling them different stories about the whereabouts of both people.
Henry Gurholt was from Scandinavia, Wisconsin and replaced Olaf Lindboe around July 1905. He had written his family regularly and his last letter to his brother Martin, dated July 4, 1905, talked about the Gunness property and how nice everything was. Around August 1905 Christofferson said that Gunness had asked for his help and, when he inquired on Lindoe’s whereabouts, was told that Lindboe claimed he was sick and had left. When Lindboe’s family reached out to Gunness for answers as to his whereabouts she said he had gone “to Chicago to work as a horse trader in the Union Stock Yards.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 88) His remains were found in the Gunness pig pen.
Gurholt is based off of Clarence ”Mac” McDougall from Tillie the Toiler, a working girl strip that ran from 1921 until 1959, first by creator, Russ Westover and then by his assistant, Bob Gustafson. In the strip, McDougall, Tillie’s boss for her part-time secretary job, suffers from his unrequited love for her. You can read more about it in Brain Walker’s book, The Comics: The Complete Collection published in 2011.
Emil Greening was interested in Jennie as detailed in de la Torre’s book, "They were together, talking happily for hours on end, in the barn at the chores or out in the Autumn meadows...Other fellows courted Jennie, too. There was a pleasant-faced young electrician from town, and the boy across the way was beginning to cast sheep’s eyes across the McClung Road.” (del la Torre, pp. 77-78, 1960) In Schechter’s book, Hell’s Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men, he documents that Greening was told by Jennie that her foster mother was going to "send her to college in California and had arranged for one of the professors to come...and escort her to the school.” Greening is quoted in Schechter’s book, "Mrs. Gunness told me that Jennie had left...but no one saw her leave. And no one ever saw the professor.” The book continues about another suitor of Jennie’s named John Weidner who also claimed Jennie had told him that she was going off to attend college in Los Angeles. (Schechter, p. 35, 2018) In de la Torre’s book, it appears that Jennie and Greening are more romantically involved than Weidner. In Schechter’s book it seems the opposite with Greening playing more of the role of a confidant.
Langlois’ Belle Gunness: The Lady Bluebeard states that “about the late fall of 1906, when Jennie was sixteen and already had two suitors. Frances Dawson remembered that her family hadn’t seen Jennie for a week or so...Belle told her, ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you, I put Jennie in a girl’s school in Wisconsin.” (Langlois, p. 77, 1980) Based on testimony printed in Langlois’ book, Jennie was last seen about ten days before Christmas, 1906. Her remains were the second set found at the Gunness farm in May of 1908.
I also wanted to point out, in the bottom panel of page 106 I wanted to homage Charles Schultz’s iconic comic strip Peanuts and the way he would depict Charlie Brown’s mannerisms while he wrote letters. I love how he would have Charlie stick his tongue out as if he were focused concentrating.
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Pages 120 - 122: George Berry from Tuscola, Illinois came to the Gunness farm in August of 1905 after Gurholt. He had brought fifteen-hundred dollars with him and was planning on working the farm with the understanding that he would eventually marry Belle. He soon disappeared replaced by an unknown man from Ohio. He also “…disappeared around oat-cutting time. He left behind a horse and buggy that Belle put to good use.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 88)
Berry is loosely based on Everett True from A. D. Condo’s The Outbursts of Everett True. Largely forgotten today, it was a popular weekday comic strip syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association from 1905 - 1927. Comic book writer Tony Isabella revived the character in 1983 for a series of comic strips aimed at the comic book industry and published in the Comic Buyers Guide and the Comics Journal. (Walker, 2011, p. 83 and WIkipedia, 2019)
The unknown man from Ohio is based on V.T. Hamlin’s Doctor Elbert Wonmug from his fantastic Alley Oop comic strip mentioned earlier. Doctor Wonmug is the inventor who created the time machine that allowed Alley Oop to have adventures throughout history.
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Page 123: Andrew Helgelein began communicating with Gunness through the mail and she almost immediately began beckoning him to sell all of his possessions and come to her farm in LaPorte. These two letters were excerpted from copies reprinted in Lindberg’s Heartland Serial Killers and on file at the LaPorte County History Museum. (Lindberg, 2011, pp. 140-141)
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Page 124: Tonnes Peterson Lien went missing April 2, 1907. It is suspected he was another victim of Gunness. His design is based off of farmer Si Slocum from Frederick B. Opper’s strip And Her Name Was Maud. The strip was one of three Opper created for the Hearst papers including Happy Hooligan and Alphonse and Gaston. It ran from 1904 until sometime in the ‘10s but appeared intermittently through 1932. (Markstein and also Walker, 2011, p. 45)
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Page 125: Frank Riedinger of Delafield, Wisconsin is suspected to be another of Gunness’ victims and disappeared sometime in 1907. His character is based on Belgian born Herg’s (Georges Remi) character Captain Archibald Haddock from The Adventures of Tintin and, as mentioned before, the most popular European comic of all time.
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Page 126 - 128: George Anderson, a 39-year-old man from Tarkio, Missouri was one of the few people who avoided an untimely end in the Gunness pig pen. As detailed in Heartland Serial Killers he arrived at the Gunness farm without enough money to satisfy Belle. She told him that he needed to come with enough money to pay off her mortgage before she would agree to marry him. He wired his bank for more money and Gunness allowed him to stay in the guest room while they waited. "On the third evening he awoke from a restless twilight sleep to find Belle leaning over the bed, peering down at him in a menacing way...Frightened for his safety, he lied awake the rest of the night and bolted out of bed at the crack of dawn. He hurriedly dressed and raced out the front door without looking back.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 109)
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Anderson is strongly modeled after J. Wellington Wimpy from E.C. Segar's Thimble Theater. Wimpy, known for his catchphrase “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”, and something of a scam artist. I picture Anderson as trying to pull a con on Gunness as well and so I thought basing him off of Wimpy was a good fit.
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Pages 129 - 130: In June of 1907 Gunness hired a local handyman named Ray Lamphere to take care of various tasks around her property that included room and board. Lamphere was a 36-year-old man and the son of a formally prominent local politician, justice of the peace, and a produce farmer. The elder Lamphere said his son was a good boy except for his reliance on alcohol.
According to Lamphere, he and Gunness, began a sexual relationship early on after he was hired despite the fact that Gunness was twelve years older than he. According to Heartland Serial Killers, “...Lamphere knew better than to attempt to break into Belle’s ‘Secret Room’ on the second floor of the farm house...”. (Lindberg, 2011, pp. 88-89 and de la Torre, 1960)
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Page 131: In September 25, 1907 Gunness wrote Helgelein another of her letters continuing to attempt to lure him to LaPorte. These were some excerpts for that letter. (Lindberg, 2011, pp. 141-142)
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Page 135: At the top of page 135 I wanted to include the Sorenson/Gunness children and give the reader an idea of how old they were at this time. At this point in the story, Phillip Gunness is based off of Fritz Katzemjammer from the Katzenjammer Kids created by Rudolph Dirks and discussed earlier. Myrtle Sorenson is based off of Annie from Little Orphan Annie by Harold Gray and also mentioned earlier. Lucy Sorenson is based off of Josie from Harold Teen by Carl Ed that ran from 1919 to 1959. (Walker, 2011, p. 168) As mentioned at the beginning of this work, Lamphere’s design is based off of the great Bud Fisher’s Mutt from Mutt and Jeff.
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Page 136: There is no evidence to support any of this conversation having taken place. It is merely used to establish that Lamphere wanted to have a more committed relationship to Gunness. There really is no evidence that he ever even talked to any of the children on the Gunness farm.
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Pages 137 - 139: It seemed that Lamphere believed that he and Belle were a couple although Gunness continued to run her matrimonial advertisements throughout the Midwest. Lamphere, on the other hand, bragged to his friends in town that he and Gunness were a couple and would show off the clothes and gifts she had given him. "He boasted that he was going to marry her...Ray was besotted in love, and insanely jealous. ...Early in January another visitor appeared at the farm...Belle told Ray to go sleep in the barn so the guest could have his room.” (de la Torre, 1960, pp. 91 -94)
Although in del la Torre’s book it had only been mentioned once that Lamphere was told to sleep out in the barn but I am depicting that she made him multiple times. There is no evidence that he was told to do so more than when the guest in January 1908 came to visit. I am strictly speculating that Gunness made him sleep out there many times to make room for her steady flow of temporary visitors. I can only assume that is what happened as there appears that there were quite a few Gunness victims during the time of Lamphere’s employment at the Gunness farm.
Emil Tell from Osage City, Kansas is suspected to be a victim of Gunness after disappearing in 1907. He is based on a anthropomorphic Tige, Buster Brown’s pet dog from the comic strip titled after the starring character. The comic strip created by Richard Outcault in 1902 was mentioned earlier in these notes. Buster Brown and Tige were an early licensing success. The Brown Shoe Company began licensing the characters in 1904 and continued to use them well into the 1990s, far outlasting any other media the characters appeared in.
Page 140 - 142: Lee Porter from Edinburg, Illinois is presumed to be another of Gunness’ victims. His character design is based on a drawing of Sluggo from the comic strip Nancy by the incomparable Wally Wood reprinted in MAD Super Special Number 36 from Fall of 1981 in a feature written by Frank Jacobs titled If Famous Authors Wrote the Comics. In the strip titled If Mickey Spillane Wrote: Nancy, Sluggo is portrayed as a world-weary, hard-boiled, private investigator with a five-o’-clock shadow and trench coat. When he sees Nancy’s aunt Fritzi he completely forgets about Nancy and tries to woo Fritzi instead.
The pose of Lamphere rolling up his sleeve as he goes to confront Gunness is loosely based on Robert Crumb’s Keep on Truckin’ artwork the first premiered in the inaugural issue of Zap Comix in 1968. It is infamous for the mulltitude of lawsuits Crumb has had to endure due to copyright violations on his work. The most recent violation of note had to do with Amazon using it in their product searches in 2005. (Wikipedia, 2020)
Although there is no evidence to suggest that Lamphere walked in on Gunness killing Porter, or anyone else for that matter, it is theorized that Lamphere discovered Gunness’ terrible secret and used it as a way of control over her. It has also been speculated that Lamphere began to assist Belle in, at least, helping dispose of the bodies of her victims. As quoted in Linberg’s Heartland Serial Killers, Lamphere was bragging to one of his drinking partners, Bessie Wallace, “I got the old she-devil where I want her! I know enough to make her get down on her knees to me. I could send her to the gallows for what I know about her!” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 89)
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Page 143: George Bradley was thought to be a victim of Gunness sometime in October of 1907. Again, there is no proof that Lamphere had anything to do with the killing or disposal of Gunness’ victims but it is generally believed that he had assisted her in the disposal of the victims if not more.
George Bradley is based off of Salesman Sam by George Swanson that ran from 1921 - 1927 in that incarnation. Swanson is considered a major influence on the work of Bill Holman’s Smokey Stover who, in turn, was a major influence on the work of Jack Cole (creator of Plastic Man), Harvey Kurtzman (creator of MAD comic book and, later on, MAD Magazine), and Will Elder (a major contributor to MAD and arguably one of the greatest cartoonists of the 20th century). There is a fantastic article on the website Screwball Comics by Paul C. Tumey about Bradley and Salesman Sam you can see by visiting the following site: http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2012/03/alesman-am-and-salesman-sam-one.html
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Page 144: John E. Hunter was suspected to be one of Gunness’ victims on November 25, 1907. Abraham Phillips and Benjamin Carling also disappeared sometime in 1907.
Hunter is based on the title character of Sherlocko the Monk by Gus Mager. In 1910 Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, threatned the creators with legal action due to the name. Sherlocko was renamed Hawkshaw the Detective and ran from 1913 - 1922 and revived in 1931 - 1952. (Walker, 2011, p. 91 and Hawkshaw, 2019)
Phillips is based off of the great Rube Goldberg’s title character from Boob McNutt mentioned earlier. Boob McNutt ran from 1918 - 1934.
Carling was based off Otto from Auto Otto by Gene Ahern known better as the creator of the strip Our Boarding House.
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Page 145: Andrew Helgelein, after corresponding over the past eighteen months with Gunness, finally left South Dakota in January 1908 to meet with Gunness and see the farm before making the decision to relocate from South Dakota to Indiana permanently. Helgelein’s brother, Asle, was expecting him back in about a week. Andrew had also told a mutual friend of both he and his brother, a woman named Minnie Cone who was living in Minneapolis, that he would only be gone for seven days. (Lindberg, 2011, p. 143)
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Page 146 - 147: Although there is nothing that indicates that Gunness would have Lamphere come in and out of the house as her ”guests” came and then mysteriously disappeared, I am making the assumption that is what she was doing. The Gunness and Lamphere relationship appeared to be built strictly on Lamphere’s usefulness to Gunness and his knowledge as to her horrifying activities.
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148 - 150: January 6th, 1908 Helgelien, accompanied by Gunness, appeared at the First National Bank of La Porte attempting to cash in three certificates of deposit totaling two-thousand eight-hundred and thirty-nine dollars or roughly 75,000 dollars in 2020 money). The teller, Frank Pitner, told them it would take four or five days to make sure that the money would clear. Helgelien seemed okay with the delay but Gunness tried to argue the point.
The two returned to the bank on January 14th, 1908, three days after the money had been available for Helgelien to collect. When Pitner said something to them about not seeming as urgent for the money as they had been ”he was told the Helgelien had been sick for the past few days.” Pitner recommended that he write Helgelien a cashier’s check for the amount but Gunness ”insisted he take the entire sum in cash...half in gold coins, half in currency...he asked Helgelien what he meant to do with it all.
,Mind your own business!, Mrs. Gunness snapped...” (Schechter, 2018, pp. 49-50)
My personal theory at this point is I think that Helgelien may have been showing some signs of regret and Gunness, in order to keep him from leaving before the bank cleared his certificates, had begun to poison him, just enough to keep him under her control. At this point I am certain that Gunness was an expert poisoner and knew exactly the amount that she should give in order to keep him ill without killing him. At least until she wanted him dead, that is.
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151 - 154: The same day that Gunness had Helgelien go with her to pick up his money she returned to her farm and gave Lamphere specific instructions to meet her cousin, John Moe, at the livery barn in Michigan City, Indiana to conduct a horse trade. If her cousin was not there that night Lamphere was supposed to stay there overnight and meet with him the next morning. Lamphere left at five in the afternoon taking with him his friend, John Rye, Lamphere and Rye arrived at the livery barn and finding no one named John Moe, killed time at an oyster bar and then a vaudeville show.
At around 8:00 in the evening, Lamphere checked the livery barn again to see if Moe had shown. Seeing he had not, Lamphere told Rye that he was heading back to La Porte despite what Belle insisted and then took the interurban back to La Porte, arriving around 9:15 in the evening ”to see what the old lady is up to” and that he would meet up with Rye at Smith’s saloon later. Rye claimed he had waited at Smith’s for an hour but saw no sign of Lamphere. (Schechter, 2018, p. 50)
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Page 155: This is all completely conjecture at this point but I would surmise that Lamphere walked in on Gunness in the middle of disposing of Helgelien’s corpse. As far as anyone is aware, there is really no solid evidence that Lamphere was involved in any of the murders or disposal but, if he was not aware of her deeds at this point, it is fair to assume that he was by the time he arrived back to the farm on January 14th, 1908.
Another argument could be made that Lamphere, in a fit of rage, caught Gunness and Helgelien in the throes of passion, and murdered Helgelien. Either way though he had disobeyed his mistress’ orders to stay in Michigan City and there would be a price to be paid.
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Page 156: I took a bit of liberty with Asle Helgelien in this sequence. It was actually Andrew Helgelien’s farmhand, a man by the name of John Hulth, who discovered “dozens of letters” signed by Bella Gunness. He gave the letters to Asle who began to investigate his brother’s whereabouts. (Schechter, 2018, p. 52)
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Pages 157 - 158: Schechter’s Hell’s Princess pinpoints Gunness and Lamphere having a final falling out on February 3rd. The death of Helgelein and the dissolution of the Gunness/Lamphere partnership set off a chain of events that lead the terrible tragedy of April 28th, 1908.
According to Lindberg’s Heartland Serial Killers, Lamphere said that “...Mrs. Gunness had proposed marriage to him on several occasions and encouraged him to take out a life insurance policy naming her as sole benefactor. She said she would promise to pay the premiums providing that he would agree to marry her. His refusal to agree to these terms led to a bitter and acrimonious falling out...” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 89 and Schehter, 2018, p. 52)
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Pages 159 - 160: Less than a week after Lamphere’s departure, Gunness hired a local man named Joe Maxson to replace Lamphere. In the meantime Lamphere consulted with an attorney for advice on reclaiming the personal property he left behind at the Gunness farm in addition to unpaid wages she owed him. The attorney told him to go back to the Gunness farm and demand his property. Gunness, not only was not intimidated, but drove Lamphere away from her property. She had also began to write a series of letters claiming Lamphere was harassing her to the county sheriff, a man by the name of Albert Smutzer. (Schehter, 2018, p. 53)
Joe Maxson is another character I have based off of Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy. As I began my preliminary work on this piece I started with a series of sketches. One I did in particular of Joe Maxon reminded me of Captain Easy so, even though I already used the character in one of my montage sequences, I am using him again. Plus, anytime I can homage Crane I am going to take the opportunity.
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Pages 161 - 162: Gunness wrote a number of letters to Sheriff Albert Smutzer complaining of Lamphere prowling around her property and harassing her. She had finally had him arrested for trespassing in mid-March. On March 13th, 1908, Lamphere, without a lawyer, plead guilty to the trespassing charge. Justice of the Peace S. E. Grover fined Lamphere one-dollar and court costs. (Schehter, 2018, p. 53)
Justice Grover is based off of Professor Radium, a character created for Puck, a British Weekly published by Amalgamated Press, by cartoonist Tom Wilkinson. (Aldridge & Perry, 1971, p. 103 and Wilkinson)
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Pages 163 - 164: Asle Helgelien reached out to the La Porte postmaster in March and confirmed that Belle Gunness did live in La Porte, Indiana. He then sent Gunness a letter inquiring as to where Andrew was. "She responded March 27. ,You wish to know where your brother keeps himself. Well this is just what I would like to know but it almost seems impossible for me to give a definite answer., According to her highly dubious account, Andrew had left home to search for another of his brothers...,he was going to make a thorough search for him in Chicago and N[ew] York... He always thought he, the Bro., had gone to Norway and he would go after him., “ (Schechter, 2018, pp. 52-53)
After responding to Asle's letter, Gunness filed an affidavit that Ray Lamphere was insane. ”Though he had already been found guilty and fined for harassing behavior, he, continues same, generally while intoxicated...Appended to Belle's affidavit was a statement from Ray's physician, Dr. Bo Bowell, who testified that 'I do not consider him insane.' “ (Schechter, 2018, pp. 53)
The scene in the last panel of the police officer leaning against the desk is a direct copy of a Bad Fisher Mutt & Jeff panel.
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Page 165: “We find the patient quite, clean, and neat... He is slightly nervous. His memory is good for recent and remote events. Speech is intelligent and coherent. Ray Lamphere is not insane.” (Schechter, 2018, p. 53 from the La Porte Argus-Bulletin, May 9, 1908)
I violated my pre-1950s rule again with this page. I could only picture a set of Gary Far Side Larson-style scientists so that is what I chose to use. Do yourself a favor and visit the Far Side website at http://www.thefarside.com
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Page 166: Gunness had Lamphere arrested for trespassing in early-April. Just before his trail she received a letter from Asle Helgelien requesting to see the letter Gunness claimed to have gotten from Andrew about his search for their other brother. She responded to the elder Helgelien claiming that the letter she had claimed to have received from Andrew had been stolen by Lamphere. (Schechter, 2018, p. 54)
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Pages 167 - 169: Lamphere hired a lawyer, Wirt Worden, this time for the second trespassing trial held on April 15, 1908. Worden’s request for a change of venue was granted and the trial was held in Stillwell, Indiana, about ten miles southeast of LaPorte. Worden began to question Belle regarding the death of Peter Gunness and, in turn, drew multiple objections from the state’s attorney, Ralph N. Smith.
Smith instructed Gunness she need not reply to Worden’s questioning. Worden continued to brow-beat Gunness though asking her questions about Peter’s life insurance and “How did that sausage grinder and crock of hot brine come to drop on Mr. Gunness’ head anyway?” He also asked about the suspicious circumstances surrounding her first husband, Mad’s death before Justice Robert C. Kincaid replied, “I think these questions have gone a little too far”.
After dismissing Gunness Worden then said, “Oh, just a moment. When will your daughter, Jennie Olsen, return, Mrs. Gunness.” This gave Worden a sharp admonishment from Justice Kincaid but it also visibly rattled Gunness.
Lamphere was fined five-dollars plus court costs totaling nineteen-dollars and one-cent. (Schechter, 2018, pp. 54 - 56)
Justice Kincaid is another character I based on Ol’ Doc Yak by Sidney Smith and mentioned earlier. Ralph Smith is based off of a character from Percy Crosby’s comic strip Skippy. Skippy was also a highly influential comic strip and also a licensing success. It became the center of a trademark fight between Crosby and Rosenfield Packing Company when they introduced a peanut butter marketed as Skippy. Crosby’s heirs continued the fight well into the 21st century. (Skippy, 2020 and Blackbeard, Williams, & Canaday, 1988, p. 130) Wirt Worden, Lamphere’s attorney is based off of Uriah Stumble from George Herriman’s more traditional comic strip, Stumble Inn, and ran for a few years starting in 1922 and concurrent with Krazy Kat. (Blackbeard, Williams, & Canaday, 1988, pp. 66-67)
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Page 170: This is all completely conjecture but does reflect a theory as to Belle’s final fate in La Porte. It will be explored further in this telling. From the footnotes in Appendix II of Heartland Serial Killers by Richard Lindberg, “Esther Worchowski of 507 W. 14th St., Chicago is the only other female victim (apart from Jennie Olsen) * listed in the Mrs. Gunness Mystery pamphlet. No other explanation is provided.”
* This does not account for any of the other children including Caroline, Myrtle, and Lucy Sorenson. It should also have been noted that she was the only known female victim.
As stated earlier, Esther Worchowski is based off of E. C. Segar’s Sea Hag from Thimble Theater.
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Pages 171 - 174: On the 24th of April, 1908 Gunness replied to Asle Helgelien’s latest letter to her regarding his brother. In her letter she restates that Lamphere had probably taken the letter she had from Andrew and, in response to Asle coming to visit, she responded, “I don’t know what we could do to find him”. (Schechter, 2018, p. 57)
On April 25, 1908 Lamphere went on trial again based on another trespassing complaint by Gunness. Gunness’ daughter, Myrtle testified that Lamphere had been prowling on the farm and cut a fence, removing a fence post. This time Wirt Worden called on two witnesses that swore Lamphere was at the farm of John Wheatbrook “...and could not possibly been at the home of Mrs. Gunness”. Gunness was responsible for court costs this time. (Schechter, 2018, p. 57)
Bertha Schultz who worked at the Chicago Leader dry goods store said that Gunness had been coming into the store the last week of April 1908 and complained that Lamphere was harassing her. According to Miss Schultz, Gunness “...told me that she feared he would come set fire to her home and buildings and that he would murder her and her children.” (Schechter, 2018, pp. 57 - 58)
A teacher at the Quaker school, Miss Jennie Garwood, said that the Gunness children, who had attended the school, said that Myrtle and Lucy had come to school and were obviously upset and had been crying. When she asked them why they said, “Mama told us to keep out of the basement but while we were playing we went downstairs. She caught us and before we got to the bottom of the steps she brought us back. She always kept the cellar door locked and got awful mad when anybody started near it. She told us that she would punish us worse if we ever tried to get downstairs again. The she whipped us.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 108)
Although I used Chris Christofferson as the witness that Worden is questioning, the Schechter book quotes that is was “two substantial citizens of the county”. Also, although I have the dry goods store named Schultz’s it was actually named The Chicago Leader. (Schechter, 2018, p. 57)
Although it violates my pre-1950s rule, I based the clerk, Bertha Schultz, on Charles Schultz’ Charlotte Braun. I could not resist acknowledging one of the greatest cartoonists of all time. Charlotte Braun was a female version of Charlie Brown but with the opposite personality. She briefly appeared in the Peanuts strip from the end of 1954 until the beginning of 1955 and was confrontational and loud. After she disappeared, Lucy van Pelt took over the role as the bossy character. Prior to this, Lucy “had functioned as a wide-eyed child of wonder.” (Peanuts Fandom Wiki, 2020)
Miss Jennie Garwood, the teacher at the Quaker school, is based off of Mama Katzenjammer from The Katzenjammer Kids and mentioned in–depth earlier.
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Pages 175 - 177: Soon after the second trespassing trial of Lamphere, Gunness had her lawyer, Melvin E. Leliter, draft a new will. Leliter, noticing how Gunness had been carrying on with anger and worry suggested she “get a gun and shoot him” according to the Lindberg account or “fill him full of buckshot” as described in the Schechter book. Some accounts state she did this on the day of April the 27th, which could be the case, but it is definitely true that she had it filed by George Link, the clerk of the circuit court that day. The will left everything to her children and, in the case that all three of the children were to die, the proceeds would go to the Norwegian Lutheran Children’s Home Society in Chicago (or the Norwegian Children’s Home of Chicago as said in the Schechter book). (Lindberg, 2011, pp. 145-148 & Schechter, 2018, p. 59-60)
While on her errands it says she went to a store where she bought “candy, cake, and a toy train, telling the clerk, Marie Farnheim, that she was ‘going to give the children a little treat.’“(Schechter p. 60)
She also went to the general store, buying a lot of groceries and two gallons of kerosene that she filled from a can she had borrowed from the store. While she was in the store there was a bit of dramatic tension as Lamphere had walked in.”He bought a five-cent plug of tobacco. He stared constantly at Mrs. Gunness, but neither one said a word. In my opinion they were bitter enemies...Lamphere went out and stood on the sidewalk and watched Mrs. Gunness as she untied her horse and drove away. She had tears in her eyes.” (de la Torre, 1960, p. 641 & Schechter p. 60)
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Pages 178 - 180: Maxson helped Gunness unload the wagon and about 6:30 in the evening they sat down to a large meal of “Bread and butter, dried beef, salmon, beefsteak, and potatoes. Everybody showed a fine appetite, and we all had a couple of helpings of beefsteak and lots of cookies and jam...At eight-thirty I became sleepy and went upstairs to bed in my room above the kitchen. The last I saw of Mrs. Gunness, she was sitting on the floor with the children, playing with the toy engines and passenger coaches.” (de la Torre, 1960, pp. 650-651)
Reflecting later, Maxson told his sister, Martha Alderfer that the night of the fire, after dinner, Gunness had given him an orange that he put in his pocket for later. Gunness insisted he eat it then saying,” It may be the last treat you’ll get from me!”
He started to feel sleepy and after going to bed claimed that he abruptly woke to find Gunness standing over his bed. After he asked if anybody was sick, Gunness replied “No. I just wanted to see if you were asleep.”, before leaving the room. In retrospect Maxson believed Gunness had a hammer with her but did not put two-and-two together. He simply got up and bolted his door before falling back asleep. (de la Torre, 1960, pp. 292-295)
Maxson awoke to what he believed was breakfast cooking about four o’ clock in the morning. Realizing pretty quickly that what he smelled was not breakfast he looked out the window to see that the main part of the house was on fire. He tried to kick in the doors to the main part of the house but could not open them so he quickly pulled on his boots and ran down the stairs and out to the nearby carriage shed carrying a ”valise and a pair of overalls”. He grabbed an ax from the tool shed and tried in vain to wake Gunness and her family while attempting to bust out the door. Ella Clifford could see the fire from her kitchen window as she made her husband breakfast and she sent her teenage son, William, to go help before getting her husband, Michael, and her brother-in-law, William Humphrey, as well. The men tried waking Gunness and her children by throwing bricks into windows and even put a ladder up to two different windows and could see nothing but an empty bed and flames. Soon other neighbors including the Nicholsons, Lampams, and Hutsons arrived to see if they could be of any help. As flames engulfed the house there was nothing they could do. (Lindberg, 2011, pp. 148-149 & Schechter, 2018, pp. 65-67)
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181 - 184: With help, Maxson hitched a horse to a buggy and rushed to town to find Sheriff Smutzer. At five in the morning Maxson arrived to find Deputy Sheriff William Antiss who then escorted Maxson to Sheriff Smutzer’s house. Smutzer then led the charge back to the property in his red Ford automobile. By the time they arrived only three walls still partially stood along with about fifty spectators. By the rest of the day hundreds stood watching as the sheriff and volunteer fire brigade began the search for the bodies of Gunness and her children. (Lindberg, 2011, pp. 149 and Schechter, 2018, pp. 67-69)
“The work was nearly three-quarters complete when searchers came upon the headless remains of an adult female and the body of Phillip Gunness wrapped in a blanket and lying on her breast in the northeast corner of the cellar. The bodies of the other two children lay on either side of the headless corpse.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 150)
William Clifford is based off of Kayo Mullins from Moon Mullins mentioned earlier. Michael Clifford and William Humphrey are both based off of Uncle Willie, also from the previously mentioned strip.
Deputy Antiss is based off of a comic illustration of a police officer from an old postcard with the text “You Run Into Many Club Men Here”.
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Page 185: “A nearby pond was another likely location to dispose of human remains that were impossible to identify once they were unearthed.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 109)
The line at the top of the page is based off of Harry Burr Darling’s report for the front page of the Argus-Bulletin’s April 28th, 1908 issue. “Several years ago, this house was associated with a mystery. Today it is a funeral pyre.” (Also excerpted from Schechter, 2018, p. 67)
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Page 189 - 190: Austin is Austin Cutler, the town undertaker. He brought the remains to Coroner Charles Mack. Sheriff Smutzer was firmly in the camp that believed that the body belonged to Gunness and was missing the head due to the overwhelming heat of the fire burning it off, the argument being that there was no evidence of Gunness’ dental work and that there would at least be teeth or evidence of gold. (More on that in a little while).
Austin Cutler is based off of Tubby from Little Lulu by Marjorie Henderson Buell and created as a replacement for Carl Anderson’s Henry for the Saturday Evening Post in 1935. Little Lulu was a hugely influential strip that spun off from a single-panel comic to a strip, comic books, cartoons, and much more. Buell was a rarity in that she was a highly successful early female comic artist in a field where few women worked at that time. (Marge, 2020)
Charles Mack is based off of Skippy Skinner from Skippy mentioned earlier. (Skippy, 2020)
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Page 191: Dr. Harry Long assisted in the postmortem and was one of the dissenter’s disagreeing that the headless body found in the fire was that of Gunness’. “He said the body in the morgue was five inches shorter than Belle and weighed a full fifty pounds less than Belle did.” (Lindberg, 20110, pp. 150-151) As Heartland Serial Killers quoted from the May 10th issue of the New York Daily Tribune attributed to Dr. Long,” It is not correctly proportioned. It is of a rather plump woman of the same contour of Mrs. Gunness but weighing between 150 - 160 pounds. Mrs. Gunness weighed fully 225 pounds. The fingers show evidence of careful manicuring and that was something Mrs. Gunness knew nothing about.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 151)
Dr. Harry Long is based off Dr. Zarkov from the late, great Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon comic strip.
Page 192: Ray Lamphere was at the farm of John Wheatbrook when Deputies Antiss and Marr questioned him regarding the fire at the Gunness farm as reported in the Chicago Tribune November 20, 1908. As related in Heartland Serial Killers Marr said, “I found Lamphere standing on the stairs and said: ‘Get on your coat and come to town, Ray.’ Lamphere’s reply was ‘Did those three children and that woman get out of that fire alright?’ ‘What fire do you mean?’ I answered. ‘The little fire at the edge of town?’ Lamphere answered yes.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 151)
Deputy Marr is based off of a copy of a comic by Peter Kuper parodying a Winsor McCay comic Little Sammy Sneeze titled Little Donald Sneeze published in the April 27, 2020 issue of the New Yorker. (Kuper, 2020)
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193 - 194: Lamphere’s alibi was Elizabeth Smith, a local character of African descent and the child of Virginia slaves. Known locally by a derisive nickname, Liz was well into her seventies. Lamphere was reluctant but finally broke down on the promise that it be not be told to the public that he had spent the night with Liz and then walked six miles to John Wheatbrook’s farm. Smith backed this up saying that Lamphere left for Wheatbrook’s at about 4:00 in the morning.
After two days of trying and failing to break down Lamphere into confessing to the murders of Gunness and her children, Smutzer changed tactics and took him to the Cutler Funeral Home, showing him the corpses of Gunness and her children. Lamphere was visibly shaken but could only say, “My God.” and “Isn’t that awful.” (Schechter, 2018, pp. 74-77)
The image of the Cutler Funeral Home is based off of a picture found on the INGenWeb Project website in the La Porte section under Funeral Homes, Parlors and Undertakers. This can be found at the following link: http://ingenweb.org/inlaporte/Funeral.htm
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Page 195: Lamphere was arraigned right after Smutzer took him to see the bodies of Gunness and her children. There, unrepresented, in front of Justice Grover the state's attorney, Ralph Smith read the charges. (Schechter, 2018, p. 77)
Ralph Smith, as well as Smutzer and the rest of the county officers were all Republicans. Smith was looking at a tough reelection campaign and Smutzer, who was planning on retiring at the end of his term, was supporting his deputy, Antiss. It would look bad if they were unable to sew this case up quickly. There is no evidence that the conversation between Smith and Smutzer took place but it would be crucial to find proof that the body in the cellar was Gunness,. (Lindberg, 2011, p. 152)
In the first panel I erroneously included Lamphere's attorney, Wirt Worden. As mentioned above, Lamphere went before Justice Grove unrepresented.
The bailiff was cribbed from a Mutt and Jeff panel by Bud Fisher.
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Page 196: Asle Helgelien, in the meantime, had been writing various people in La Porte to get information about his brother. One person he contacted was Frank J. Pitner, the clerk who worked with Andrew,s on his wire transfer. Pitner, thinking that the fire at the Gunness place would be something that Asle should be notified about, sent him a copy of the front page of the April 28th, 1908 issue of the La Porte Daily Herald.
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Page 197 - 198: Gunness, older sister, Nellie Larson, with whom she had a falling out with eight years prior discovered her sister’s death in the newspaper. Accompanied with her son, John R. Larson and her daughter, Mrs. Edward Howard, the three traveled to La Porte via train to claim Gunness and her children’s bodies for burial in Chicago.
Also on the train was Jennie Olsen’s older sister, Mrs. George Olander. Even though the two siblings had been separated since they were young children they maintained regular correspondence until Jennie left for school in California. The older sister attempted to find where in California Jennie had gone to with no success and, concerned that her sister might have arrived at the Gunness farm the day before, headed by train to see if she was among the victims. She was also curious about Gunness’ will and the fact that, although Gunness had willed her property to the three children that died with her, she had not left anything to Jennie. (Schechter, 2018, pp. 79-80)
The character of Mrs. Olander is based on Tootsie Woodley, Blondie’s best friend from Chic Young’s strip and discussed earlier in this work. As the character of Jennie Olsen is based off of Blondie I thought that it would be fitting to base her sister on Blondie’s best friend.
Nellie Larson is modeled after Mama Oyl, the matriarch of the Oyl family and Olive’s mother, as well as her daughter, Mrs. Howard. John Larson is based off of Oscar, also from Thimble Theater.
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Page 199 - 201: On May 4th, 1908 Asle Helgelien arrived at the Gunness Farm despite resistance from town leaders accusing him of ”stirring up trouble”. ”I went to State’s Attorney [Ralph] Smith and laid my case before him. The State’s Attorney laughed at me. He scoffed at my story...Then he accused me of trying to give the locality a black eye. (Lindberg, 2011, p. 152 via ”Chicago American” May 8, 1908)
After getting a ride to the farm from Sheriff Smutzer, Helgelien started digging with Joe Maxson and one of the Gunness neighbor’s, Daniel Hutson, both of whom had been asked to continue searching the aftermath of the fire for the missing head. Asle was given a place to stay that evening from the Nicholson’s and returned to the property the following day to continue the search. Eventually he grew discouraged and started on his way back to town. As Schechter details, ”He hadn’t gotten far, however when he stopped and swiveled on his heels. ‘I was not satisfied and I went back to the cellar and asked Maxson whether he knew of any hold or dirt having been dug up there about the place in the spring.” (Schechter, 2018, pp. 83-84)
Maxson recalled that he dumped a load of garbage into a hole that had been used as a hog lot and then filled it in at Gunness’ direction. A few minutes in they smelled a horrible odor and discovered a gunny sack containing human body parts.
Daniel Hutson is modeled after another Roy Crane character, Buzz Sawyer.
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Pages 202 - 203: On May 4th, 1908, after finding the body of Andrew Helgelien, Joe Maxson raced to town and got Sheriff Smutzer. Soon after discovering the remains of Andrew the men discovered the body of Jennie Olsen. As the day went on and the digging continued a total of nine bodies were unearthed on the first day. On May 5th, the digging continued. Another four bodies were uncovered that day. (South Bend Tribune, 1908)
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Page 204: This conversation is merely speculation although newspapers were already reporting the opposing viewpoint of Gunness’ fate which ran against the theory presented by the State’s Attorney. Upon the discovery of the bodies buried on the property the narrative of Gunness being an innocent victim protecting her children in the horrific fire was split into another story; Gunness was a mastermind that murdered a stand-in, cut off her head to hide her identity, and after killing her family, ran off into the night. The May 6, 1908 front page headlines read, ”Mrs. Gunness Now Believed to Be Alive and In Hiding” with a subhead that read, ”Authorities Are of Opinion That Alleged Murderess Did Not Meet Death In Destruction of Her Home and She Applied Torch.” (South Bend Tribune, 1908)
Although, depending on which side the newspaper ran, Democratic or Republican, the narrative would reflect the stance of the party the paper represented. The La Porte Herald-Chronicle usually fell to the side of the ”Gunness is dead” camp whereas the Democratic aligned Argus-Bulletin stuck with the ”Gunness is on the loose” story.
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Page 205: During the dig as bodies were being unearthed on the Gunness property, Sheriff Smutzer went to the jail and questioned Lamphere as to his knowledge of the goings-on at the farm. ”My God”, gasped Lamphere. ”Five bodies. I knew that woman was bad but nothing like this.” (Schechter, 2018, pp. 83-84)
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206: As bodies were being uncovered on the Gunness property it became essential to find a place to put them until they could be identified. A carriage shed on the property was quickly re-purposed as a makeshift morgue and family members of suspected victims were notified to come identify the remains. Anton Olsen, Jennie’s father and her sisters were among the first. Also notified were the brothers of Olaf Lindboe, Henry Gurholt and John Moo. (de la Torre, 1960, p. 203 and Lindberg, 2011, p. 153)
The image of the shed is from a photo taken on the property during the ghastly carnival-like atmosphere during this period and used for souvenir postcards and found on a Flickr site by Steve Shook (See bibliography).
The morgue attendant was based off of Captain Marvel’s (now Shazam) arch-enemy, Dr. Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, created by Bill Parker and C. C. Beck that premiered in Whiz Comics issue number 2 from 1940 by Fawcett Comics.
As Ole Budsberg was based off of Lee Falk’s Phantom I thought it was fitting to use two other Falk characters, Prince Lothar and Mandrake the Magician, as his brothers. Olaf Lindboe was based off of Harold Hamgravy from Thimble Theater so his brother is also a version with longer hair and a mustache. Henry Gurholt was based off of Clarence ”Mac” McDougall from Tillie the Toiler and so is his brother sans glasses and mustache. John Moo’s brother, just like John, is based off of Pat Patton from Dick Tracy.
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Page 207: “The mood was weirdly festive as the crowd was soon serviced by vendors selling lemonade and sandwiches at roadside stands. Picture postcards of the studio portrait of Belle and her children were produced by a local printing house and sold for ten cents each or three for a quarter to souvenir hunters. Ghastly, macabre images of unearthed remains of Andrew Helgelien were quickly made into postcards and sold even faster than the Gunness family portrait.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 154)
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Page 208: On May 9th Sheriff Smutzer had the novel idea of hiring a veteran prospector named Louis Schultz, an Alaskan gold miner, to search for any trace of Gunness’ dental work. (Lindberg, 2011, p. 150 and Schechter, 2018, p. 130)
The design of Louis Schultz is based off of A. Flea, a cartoon character designed by Bob Clampett for the 1943 Warner Brother’s cartoon An Itch In Time.
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Page 209: Schechter, quoting Wirt Worden, Lamphere’s attorney, from the May 13, 1908 La Porte Argus-Bulletin after asking him about Sheriff Sumtzer employing Pinkerton Agency detectives to help gather evidence against Lamphere. “Alluding to the questionable tactics of which Pinkerton operatives were often accused, Worden flatly declared that ‘evidence is now being deliberately manufactured to make it fit the theory of the detectives.’ The was no doubt in his mind, said Worden, ‘that the gold teeth of Mrs. Gunness, with special identification marks of the dentist, will be found.’ ” (Schechter, 2018, p. 146)
The unnamed reporter is modeled after a Joe Shuster rendering of Lois Lane, from the Action Comics and Superman comics.
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Page 210: There has been a lot of speculation as to the origins of the teeth found at the Gunness property. As first posited, it would seem that Gunness’ head did burn away leaving only her gold and porcelain teeth behind. It does seem highly unlikely though that the gold would have survived intact if the head burned away. Some argued that Gunness could have pulled the bridgework out herself and planted them before setting the fire and running off but it has been pointed out that there was a fragment of real molar still attached to the bridgework and would have been very difficult to pull, not to say she could not have done so, that is.
As depicted, there is absolutely no evidence that Sheriff Smutzer had planted any evidence though. This is done merely for dramatic effect. Some speculate that Gunness had planted the teeth herself, some speculate that it was the Pinkertons planting a replica, but most agree that, even if those were Gunness’ dental prosthetics, she did not have them in her mouth when they ended in the debris.
Worden had called Isaiah Alderfer to testify about the finding of the teeth. “It was about nine o’clock, they said, when the sluice man pulled the teeth out of his vest pocket, both sets, remarking, ‘We have got what we wanted!’ Then he stowed them in his pocket again. It was near noon when Smutzer appeared. The sluice man pulled out the teeth and gave them to him.
“This was not the way Smutzer had told it. Was Smutzer lying?” (de la Torre, 1960, pp. 852)
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Pages 211-212: When news first broke that people believed that Gunness staged her own death supposed sightings began all over North America began being reported. Mrs. Cora Belle Herron, a widow from Chicago, was traveling with her mother on the way to visit her sister in New York. Two men traveling from Detroit spotted the woman and, mistaking her as Gunness, informed the authorities. Herron was apprehended from her sleeping car and taken to Utica police. After the mistake was cleared up she was asked to sign a release relieving the police of any responsibility of her false arrest which she refused.
The list on this page was listed in this order from Schechter’s Hell Princess. Not included was another arrest in Hillsdale, Michigan in July of 1908 of a woman suspected of being Gunness with similar results. In that case Worden had to fight with county commissioners to have someone sent to identify the woman. After heated debate, both Sheriff Smutzer and Chief of Police Clinton Cochrane were sent to see if this was, indeed, the murderess. (Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram, 1908 and Bemidiji Daily Pioneer, 1908 & Schechter, 2018, p. 126-130)
The police officers on page 211 are based off of Al Capp’s parody of Dick Tracy, Fearless Fosdick (and the chief). The comic strip Fearless Fosdick was a parody strip that ran in the Lil’ Abner comic. As the strip grew in popularity it eventually spun off into solo comic books, licensed for advertisements, and even a short-lived televised puppet show. (Fearless Fosdick, 2020)
The rest of the characters are original but I tried to keep them similar to E. C. Segar’s style. The character under Hot Springs, Arkansas is a bit of a callback to a character named Clem I created around 1996 for a comic strip titled Zeke and Clem that appeared briefly in a handful small press publications.
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Page 213: In an article titled Lamphere to Take Stand for the Defense from the Associated Press published on November 10, 1908, it is said that Worden was planning on calling a neighbor of Gunness named Fred Lambright who claimed he saw her at the property in June of 1908, about five weeks after the fire. “In a flash of lighting he saw Mrs. Gunness in a carriage and heard her say, ‘The money is not there.’ He says he could not be mistaken as to the identity of the woman.”
In the same article a man named D. M. Hudson (although the Lindberg book says his name is Daniel Hutson) claimed he saw Gunness on the farm as well on July 9, 1908, three full months after the fire. (South Bend Tribune, 1908 and Lindberg, 2011, p. 183)
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Page 214: Throughout the month preceding the trial, Worden worked with his law partner, the Democratic mayor of La Porte, Lemuel Darrow. As stated before, the county officers, led by the Republican Sheriff Smutzer and state’s attorney Smith, were working from the standpoint that Gunness was dead and Lamphere was the perpetrator. Worden, Darrow and the city police were working to defend Lamphere and were actively in search of Gunness. Worden had also brought in Ellsworth Weir just prior to the trial called “a crafty fox with a witness and an eloquent tear-jerker with a jury.” (de la Torre, 1960, p. 394)
Although depicted here as a conversation between Weir and Worden in actuality Weir, during the first day of proceedings, requested the clerk of the city court, George Link, ”to issue a summons for Belle Gunness to appear on the fourteenth of November [1908], an action that provoked anger from the prosecution and loud guffaws from the public. But Weir was dead serious saying: 'In my opinion the woman is not so far away that she could not answer the subpoena and her coming into court or otherwise will depend largely on the advice of her counsel.' ” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 177)
Weir is based off of another Herriman character, Baron Bean, a character I thought would nicely balance the Worden character model based off of Herriman’s Uriah Stumble.
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Page 215: The trial of Lamphere started with jury selection on November 9, 1908 and commenced immediately after the jury was seated on November 10th. Lamphere was represented by Worden who was assisted by a his law partner and La Porte mayor Lemuel Darrow. They also employed a superstar lawyer named Ellsworth E. Weir who was a surprise to everyone observing the trial.
On the prosecution side State’s Attorney Ralph Smith was assisted by Martin R. Sutherland and backed by the county sheriff’s department and the state of Indiana.
The trial was being overseen by Judge J. C. Richter and had people from all over the state coming to witness the trial. Because the courtroom only sat 300 observers, ”in an action unusual for the time, numbered tickets were distributed to spectators in the order they applied in an effort to prevent overcrowding.” (Lindberg, 2011, p. 177)
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Page 216 - 217: I did not want to spend a lot of time on the trial as this is covered extensively in most of the source materials I have used including The Truth About Belle Gunness from 1960 by Lilian de la Torre, the incredibly well-researched Heartland Serial Killers: Belle Gunness, Johann Hoch, and Murder for Profit in Gaslight Era Chicago from 2011 by Richard Lindberg, and the incomparable Harold Schechter’s Hell’s Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness from 2018. These books all do an exhaustive retelling of the trial I highly recommend you look at any, or all of them, if you are interested in that aspect of the story.
The trail concluded on Thanksgiving Eve, November 25th, 1908 at about 5:00 in the afternoon with the jury deliberating until 7:00 in the evening the following day. They were given a number of options they could consider for their deliberation including verdicts of first or second degree murder, manslaughter, arson, or not guilty. Penalties, determined by the judge would include anything from the death penalty, life in prison, or two to twenty-one years depending on the verdict decided by the jury. (Schechter, 2018, p. 215)
Lamphere appeared as if a weight had been lifted off of him. After being escorted back to his cell in the county jail he was interviewed by Edward Molloy from the La Porte Weekly Herald. He said that he had been ...”hoping for an acquittal, but my conscience is clear, and that helps me some.” When asked if he believed that Gunness was still alive he answered, “Oh, she’s dead all right.”, and when asked why he though so he replied, ”...after hearing what they said at the trial, it looks to me as if that must have been her body in the fire.” (de la Torre, 1960, p. 950 and Schechter, 2018, p. 219)
In the meantime though, many La Porteans were certain that Gunness was alive and on the run.
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Page 218: Lamphere composed a longer version of the letter shown here to his mother after Molloy had left his cell. The entire letter is below is copied from Schechter’s book (page 220) and referenced by him from the December 3, 1908 issue of the La Porte Argus-Bulletin.
Dear Mother,
I will try and write a few lines to let you know how I am.
I just got back from the courthouse where I got my sentence. I was somewhat
disappointed, although the circumstances were against me, but Ma, I am not guilty
and before God I am no criminal, even if I am in the eyes of the people. Don't
worry about me, Ma, for it might have been worse. I have thought many times
since I have been here in jail that it is a wonder that I did not find a resting
place in her private burying ground, so Ma, do not worry for I am among the living
with a clear conscience, and know I never did any great wrong to anybody. Now
Ma, I know you are almost heartbroken, but try and console yourself in the fact
that I am innocent. Of course it is hard for me but not half as hard it would be if
I were guilty.
Now Ma, cheer up. Don't worry about me, and I will see you sometime.
Goodbye from your son,
Ray.
Lamphere was taken to the state prison in Michigan City, Indiana on November 27, 1908. Although the circumstances were not ideal Lamphere seemed in good spirits and, as Schechter recites from the La Porte Argus-Bulletin, was even quoted as saying “I’m lucky to be here. Might lucky. Why, I might’ve been chopped up and put in a hole in old woman Gunness’ chicken yard.” (Schechter, 2018, p. 222)
Lamphere was given convict number 4, 140 (ibid.) and given his prison uniform.
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Page 219: A little more than a year into his sentence on December 30, 1908, Lamphere died of tuberculosis in prison in the prison ward in Michigan City at the age of was 38 years old. He was buried in Rossville Cemetery in Clinton County, Indiana on January 2, 1910. (Lindberg, 2011, p. 181 & Schechter, 2018, p. 229)
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Page 223: The Harry Myers story was considered a fiction by the warden of the Michigan City penitentiary, James Reid. As Wirt Worden is quoted in a talk he gave December 7, 1938, “I arranged for the parole of Harry Myer and employed him and some other men to dig in the orchard for the box. Although considerable time was spent on the farm in digging for it, the box was never located. It was a difficult take to begin with and merely a matter of guess work.” (Worden, 1938 & Lindberg, 2011, pp. 181-182)
Harry Myers is based on the main character from Walt Kelly’s anthropomorphic possum, Pogo, from the strip titled after the lead character. Walt Kelly began his career as an animator for the Disney Studios working on films such as Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Dumbo but struggled to suppress his own style working for a studio. A strike in 1941 gave Kelly the excuse he was looking for to leave the company and he began doing work for Dell Comics and became the art director for the New York Star. Eventually, he developed the Pogo strip that slowly evolved into a socially conscious, politically-charged strip that was often moved from the comic’s page to the editorial pages. (Biography, 2010)
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Page 224-226: The late 19th and early 20th century was the golden age of yellow journalism and with it came an era of exaggeration and fabrication. In order to boost circulation, some newspapers would make outrageous assumptions and present them as if they were facts. As the Gunness story was ideal for this style of reporting and, as fact-checkers were non-existent, there was massive speculation and stories based on rumor. Edward Bechly tracked down the Reverend Edward Schell, the man who gave council to Ray Lamphere while in prison. Unable to get Schell to reveal any information, Bechly returned to Chicago empty handed.
In some amazing coincidence the following Thursday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a speculation as to the Lamphere confession. Bechly went back to see Schell then to guilt him by using the excuse of protecting the families of the victims from undo speculation. Schell finally conceded and gave Bechly the information he had. As dramatized though, there is no evidence that Bechly, submitted the fabricated story to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
In this Lamphere confession, he is claimed to have said that the fire had started accidentally when he had gone with Elizabeth Smith and chloroformed Gunness to in attempt to rob the house. Lamphere assumed that a candle they had used to light their way had fallen over and burned the house down. Because of this so-called confession, Elizabeth Smith was taken into custody and questioned before being released on a bond of five-hundred dollars. (Lindberg, 2011, p. 182)
The articles shown are from the January 14, 1910 issue of the Detroit Times and the Lake County Times from the same date. (Detroit Times, 1910 and The Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram, 1910)
In a wire article dated May 6, 1916 titled Death Seals Negress’ Lips, it states, “[Elizabeth] had promised Wirth [sic] Worden, a lawyer, that when she felt the end was near, she would tell all she knew of Belle Gunness and Murder Farm.” The article, which also calls her a voodoo doctor, details how she died in a house fire in her shack and died before Worden could hear her dying confessions. When investigators looked through the ruins their curiosity peaked when they discovered a human skull hidden between two mattresses. “Conjecture arose as to whether it might not have been that of Belle Gunness... Opinions of those who remembered Belle Gunness was that the skull could not have been hers, and it was recalled that the negress in the practice of her mysterious rites, used a skull.” (Ogden Standard, 2016)
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Page 227: Gunness sightings plagued the La Porte sheriff’s office so much that Sheriff Antiss, who succeeded Smutzer as sheriff, was growing tired of following up on all the false sightings. He “...took to offering five-hundred dollars to anyone who could produce her in La Porte. This put a stop to the wild-goose chases by the constabulary.” (de la Torre, 1960, p. 963)
Sheriff Antiss is modeled on Pepsi, the Pepsi-Cola Cop, a marketing mascot used sporadically by Pepsi Cola obviously. Debuting in 1934, and revived briefly in the 1946-47. He was often partnered with another police officer named Pete. (Public Domain Super Heroes, 2020)
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Pages 228-232: February 9, 1931, a man named August Lindstrom died of an apparent heart attack in Lomita, California. His son, Peter, a meat-packer living in Chicago, came to settle his father’s affairs when he discovered some suspicious activity while looking over August’s paperwork. When he noticed that August’s live-in housekeeper, a woman named Esther Carlson, had been added to his bank account only a week prior to his death. He also discovered that her name had been added to the title of August’s house as well. Peter demanded that an autopsy be performed and August’s body was exhumed. It was discovered that the senior Lindstrom had died of arsenic poisoning, Carlson was brought in for questioning. Coincidently, another person suspected as a co-conspirator, Anna Erickson, a neighbor and friend to Carlson, was hospitalized with arsenic poisoning as well. As Carlson’s background was being investigated it was discovered that her first husband, Charles Hanson, died of drowning in 1909, nine months after they had been married. In 1911 she married her second, Charles Carlson, who died under suspicious circumstances in 1925. Soon, especially after discovering pictures of children in her possession, Carlson was suspected of being the infamous Belle Gunness.
On February 24, 1931 both Carlson and Erickson, now recovered from the poisoning, were charged with the murder of Lindstrom. Although they were to begin trial on March 10, Carlson, who suffered from tuberculosis, was hospitalized and could not go to court. Erickson was tried alone starting April 30th as Carlson continued to be questioned about the death of her employer. On May 6th, 1908, Carlson died of tuberculosis and on May 13th of that same year, Erickson was found not guilty.
Depicted here, I had Swan Nicholson and his son, Albert stand-in for two former La Porte residents now residing in the Los Angeles area. John Daily was a neighbor of Gunness from 1902 to 1908, and John Yorkey, a bartender who was also familiar with Gunness, were brought in to see the body of Carlson. Both men were convinced that she was the Indiana Ogress. (Gnerre, 2014 and Schechter, 2018, pp. 253-256)
Carlson’s character was based heavily on the disguised evil queen from Disney’s Snow White and Erickson was based off of Lady Tremain, the step-mother from Disney’s Cinderella.
The police detective shown arresting Carlson is based on Slam Bradley, a character conceived by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, the creator of what we consider the modern American comic book, and developed by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster after the debut of one of the earliest D.C. Comic characters, Doctor Occult, and a year before their most famous creation, Superman.
The two investigators/prosecutors depicted here are based on early comic work by the late, great, Jack Kirby, without hyperbole, one of the most-prolific and influential comic book artists of all time. Socko the Seadog was “... a pretty blatant Popeye rip-off, but that’s not Jack’s fault; that’s exactly what his publisher told him to do.” (Gnerre, 2014)
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Page 233: Although Gunness had willed her property to the Norwegian Lutheran Children's Home Society in Chicago they did not want to have anything to do with her legacy and so the property passed onto her closest living relatives. The property was eventually sold and sold again. Eventually it was subdivided into many lots and multiple houses have been built on the property. A house sits near the original foundation and from the movie Only Belle: A Serial Killer from Selbu, the owners of that house claim that one of their children sees dead people.
The image of the house is a screen capture from Google Street View. I had a number of photos I had taken at one point after visiting the property and they have mysteriously disappeared. I could claim that the images were taken by mischievous spirits but, in reality, that was three camera phones ago and I forgot to back-up the pictures.
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Pages 234-235: When trying to come up with an ending to this story my mind kept going back to the old, pre-Comics Code, revenge-style horror comic stories made famous predominantly by E. C. Comics. This sequence is heavily based on the great Al Feldstein's story, “The Thing From the Grave” from Tales From the Crypt Volume 1, Number 22 from 1951. I found a copy of this at https://readcomiconline.to/