THE BELLE OF BEDLAM

 

I wonder what lawyer M.E. Leliter was thinking on the afternoon 27 April, 1908, when he was told Mrs. Belle Gunness was in the anteroom of his Main Street office in La Porte, Indiana (above). Her very presence made Leliter  uneasy. Still, you never think the worse, do you?  

Belle was a genial and pleasant 48 year old church-going woman, but substantial - and at 6 feet, taller than most men.  Community gossips said that Belle had been seen carrying two 100 pound hogs, one under each arm.. Still, "M.E." thought he could detect the aura of hidden pain behind Belle's sharp blue Nordic eyes.

In Chicago, the stout young Belle (above) had buried two of her children -  not an unusual tragedy in the nineteenth century.  But then,  in 1900,  her husband Anton Sorenson, had died of heart disease. 

With the proceeds from Anton’s two life insurance policies,  Belle and her three daughters had purchased a farm (above) on the northeast outskirts of La Porte Indiana, out on McClung Road past Pine and Fish Trap lakes. 

It was there a year later, on 1 April, 1902 Belle had married widower Peter Gunness.   But tragedy seemed to have followed Belle from Chicago.  That very summer, Peter’s young daughter (above, on Belle's knee)  had died after a short illness. And then in December, Peter himself had been struck on the head by a falling sausage grinder, and killed. Well, life on a farm was hard, and dangerous.  

"M.E". forced a smile as he stepped out to greet the lumbering,  280 pound now middle aged woman.  But this day Belle was not interested in pleasantries. Someone, Belle announced,  wanted to murder her.

Her tale had a tinge of unreality to "M.E,"'s ears.  He was one of the most prominent of the 14,000 citizens of La Porte,  Indiana. Fifteen passenger trains a day passed through La Porte (above) on their way to and from Chicago, 60 miles to the northwest.  Perched atop the prairie, the town was surrounded by farms, including the one owned by "M.E.", and, of course,  Belle's.  

But it was also home to the Meinaid Rumely Factory (above), whose 2,000 employees assembled steam powered thrashers  and were rushing to manufacture one of the world’s first internal combustion farm tractors, the “Kerosene Annie”.

As befitted a prosperous middle class community, just down the street from "M.E."’s office stood the new red sandstone Romanesque Court House (above), with oak paneled court rooms and stained glass windows. But Belle's accusations seemed more fitting to the lurid crime ridden alleys of Chicago than the small, quiet, proper and hard working Victorian style, La Porte, Indiana.

The potential assassin, said Belle, was Ray Lamphere (above), who until recently had been Belle’s hired hand. Six weeks ago, said Belle,  she had fired Ray, and he had threatened her and her two youngest daughters. “I'm afraid he's going to kill me and burn the house,” Belle told "M.E.".   Thank goodness Belle’s eldest daughter, Jennie, was safely away at a finishing school in Los Angeles.  Yes, Belle had spoken with the police. Twice she had charged Ray with trespassing. But, explained the angry Belle,  the police had refused to grant her a protection order, and had dismissed her allegation that Ray was insane.

Now, out of an excess of caution, Belle had come to M.E., to change her will.  She wanted to be certain that her estate would go to her children. And, if for some reason, they were deceased,  then Belle wanted all her property to go to a Norwegian orphanage back in Chicago.  "M.E." took down the information, and made an appointment for Belle to return in a few days to sign the completed document.

Then shocking news came with the morning light. There had been a terrible fire at the Gunness farm in the early morning hours of 28 April, 1908.

Despite the noble efforts of Belle’s new hired hand, and two passing men, no one had made it out of the house alive.  Eventually the ashes of the beams, walls and the furniture had crashed into the basement.

By noon the heat had retreated enough for workers to shift the ashes. There they found the pitiful bodies of Belle’s three children, Myrtle and Lucy Sorensen, and Philip Gunness, aged 5,  as well as the blackened, headless corpse of a woman presumed to be Belle.

And when the cops arrested Ray Lamphere (above), he blurted out, “Did widow Gunness and the kids get out all right?”  It seemed an open and shut case.  Except... when told of the bodies, and of the charges Belle had made against him the day before,  Ray was heard to ruefully say, “After all,  she wanted me killed because I knew too much..”  Was this the foundation for an insanity plea, or even self defense - from a woman?  But it did cause the police to pause for a moment.

And then there was the mystery of the woman’s body. When doctors examined the burned corpse they described it as belonging to a woman weighing no more than 150 pounds.  Neighbors who had sewn clothing for Belle were adamant that the corpse could not be her's.   So back to the ashes went the searchers. And what they found raised even more questions; they found men’s pocket watches, rings and wallets. A lot of watches, rings and wallets.

While the police were still mulling over this perplexing development, a man named Ray Helgelien arrived in town,  looking for his brother.  Andrew Helgelien (above) had responded to a notice in a South Dakota lonely hearts column. “Wanted — a woman who owns a beautifully located and valuable farm in first class condition, wants a good and reliable man as partner in the same”.  The lady needed help paying off the farm's mortgage, and offered matrimony and love in return. After exchanging several letters, Andrew had left home with $300 cash in his pocket.  

Ray had not heard from his brother for several weeks, and finally opened a final letter mailed to him, but arriving after he had left. It was post marked from La Porte (above). It read,  “My heart beats in wild rapture for you, My Andrew. I love you. Come prepared to stay forever.”  Having seen newspaper stories about the grisly finds in the burned out farm house, Ray suspected that Andrew may have done just  that.   Had Belle placed that notice?  The local post office confirmed that Belle had mailed and received 8 to 10 letters a day, for years. The searchers spread out across the farm and started digging.

First they found and disinterred the body of daughter Jennie,  who was supposed to have been away at school in Los Angeles.   Then, under the pig pen the searchers found the bodies of ten to fourteen men and women, many of whom had been last seen visiting Belle’s farm, or working  there as maids or cooks.

Included among these remains was a body identified as being that of Andrew Helgelien (above). In his corpse, as is in many of the others, the medical examiner found cyanide. The police were now more than willing to think the worst. 

How many victims had been fed to Belle’s hogs, or buried in undiscovered graves elsewhere on the farm? When finally added up the list of known and suspected victims reached forty.  Belle Gunness could well have been the most prolific, and one of the most hard working serial murderess in American history.

The jury at Ray Lamphere’s trail found him not guilty of murder, but guilty of arson. The jury also issued a statement asserting that Belle’s body had been found in the ashes. That did not match what the medical examiner had to say about the body. And Ray insisted to the day he died that Belle had escaped.

For the next decade, sightings of Belle (above) were reported from all over America and Scandinavia. But the most intriguing story was that of Esther Carlson, who in 1931 was arrested in Los Angeles,  the location of Jennie's supposed finishing school.  Esther was charged with the murder of a Norwegian immigrant, which matched Belle's preferred victims.  Like Belle, Esther's motive was alleged to be theft of the victim's money.  Also like Belle, Esther's weapon of choice had been cyanide. But nothing was ever proved, and Esther died in jail while awaiting trial.

But two expatriates from La Porte identified photos of Esther Carlson (above) as Belle Gunness. The ages and time lines seemed to match,  Belle would have been 71 years old in 1931, and if Belle had lost weight,... Could they have been the same person?  Did Belle slaughter every human being close to her, pin it on a simpleton fall guy, and escape to California, where she went on making a living by killing?   If that seems a far fetched a tale, remember that it is the nature of most people, that when they hear of a tragedy,  their first thought is sympathy,  and almost never of evil - even though sometimes that is exactly what a tragedy is.

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THE ORIGINAL FAKE

 

I want to introduce you to Ching Ling Foo (above), “The Original Chinese Conjurer” who was the most famous magician to ever come out of China -  according to his advertising.  In 1898, when he brought his show to America, he offered $1,000 to any magician who could duplicate his act.  And that offer may have been a mistake.

Because, shortly thereafter, another magician, under the name Ching Ling Soo, began doing just that: and also billing himself as the “Original Chinese Conjurer”, and the  "Marvolous Chinese Conjurer".  Suddenly there were two originals.

In January of 1905 Foo opened his show at London's Empire Theatre (above), in Leicester Square, only to discover that for the previous month,....

...and directly across the street, at the Hippodrome Theatre (above), Soo had been running his identical show -  advertised with near identical posters.  

The two began campaigns of trash talk, accusing each other of fraud and name calling that kept the theatre critics working their pencils to the nub, and the audiences jammed into their seats at both theatres.

Eventually Foo offered Soo $2,000 for a 'trick off' in front of the press. On the appointed day Foo was there but, alas, Soo was not. The London Weekly Dispatch asked, “Did Foo fool Soo? And can Soo sue Foo?” Alas, those questions were never answered.  But the publicity kept both men headlining around England and America for most of the next decade.

Then, in March of 1918, Soo was performing on the stage of the Wood Green Empire Club (above) Theatre in London. The climax of Soo's show was his performance of his most famous trick, a variation on “The Bullet Catch”, which he called “Condemned to Death by the Boxers”. 

In this trick audience members loaded marked bullets into a rifle, and then watched recruited soldiers or policemen fire the gun directly at Soo’s chest.  Soo always caught the marked bullet in his hand (or his teeth) to thunderous applause.

The secret behind this trick is obvious. No human reflex, not a human hand or or a mouth,  can move fast enough to catch a bullet.  So the marked bullet has to be transferred by hand before the gun or guns are fired. The method of disguising the transfer varies from magician to magician, and that is what requires the skill. The trick is to distract and entertain the audience.  And not get shot. It was  Chung Lee Soo's most famous gag. 

Or at least it was until 23 March, 1918, when after the guns fired, Soo collapsed.  Was it just another dramatic stunt?  Seconds passed.  But eventually,  as horrified cast members rushed to his aid, Soo was clearly heard announcing, “Oh, my God. Something has happened. Lower the curtain”, in perfect English. The Marvolous Chinese Conjurer died the next morning at the Cottage Green Hospital.

At the inquest into his death Soo’s widow, Sue Seen, (who also appeared occasionally as his male Chinese assistant) testified sans her stage makeup as Miss Olive Path,  her real identity, She explained that the rifles were real and capable of firing real bullets, but...

...with a special hidden chamber. Cocking the rifle forced the bullet loaded by an audience member to drop out of the way, clearing space for a second bullet, which was made out of paraffin. It would dissolve with the force of the exploding gunpowder, allowing Soo to produce a bullet he had supposedly caught. It was and still is an amazing gag, when it works.

But over time there had been a buildup of black powder residue which fouled the gun's chambers. On that terrible night the real bullet remained jammed in the chamber and blocked the safe paraffin round from entering. And so when the bullet was fired, it was really fired. And Soo was really killed.

The inquest had also determined that Soo, the other “Original Chinese Conjurer” , was not actually Chinese. His actual name was William Robinson (above and below).

Robinson was actually a Caucasian from Brooklyn, New York,  and he had worked as a magician under the name “The Amazing Robinson”....

...with Olive (above)  as his assistant, until he had hit upon the idea of grafting onto the success of Ching Ling Foo, the actual original "Original Chinese Conjurer" -

- who by the way actually was Chinese but was actually named Chee Ling Qua. (Confused yet?) The lesson here is that the only people who can trust magicians are their rabbits. 

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THE FIRST BATTLE

 

I might call Thutmose III a mummy’s boy. His official mother was his aunt, Hatshepsut (above), the second female Pharaoh (who we can be certain of).  She had been the Great Royal God Wife of Thutmose II until he died in 1479 B.C. E.  Thutmose III’s actual father was also Hatshepsut’s own half brother - Egyptian royal family trees tend to lean heavily on inbreeding. 

                

Hatshepsut ran the two Kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt (above) for twenty years as Pharaoh, while Thutmose III remained the Pharaoh-in-waiting, since his actual birth mother,  Iset,  had been a "lesser" wife.  And it seems likely Hatshepsut had been pretty distracted in her latter years.

Examination of her mummy (above) in the Cairo museum reveals that besides menopause (she was in her mid-fifties when she died) Hatshepsut suffered from arthritis, diabetes, liver and bone cancer, and really bad teeth. Of course most Egyptians had bad teeth, a by-product of chewing sand in every mouth full of food. 

And what finally put Hatshepsut in her Luxor Temple, on 10 March, 1459 B.C., was blood poisoning caused by an abscess in her gums. And then, finally, after all those years playing second fiddle to his aunt,  Thutmose, a powerful young man with a strong strain of Nubian blood in his veins, felt the need to reassert Egypt's authority on his northern border. And quickly. 

Within days of ascending to the Throne of Horus, the 22  year old Thutmose III (above) ordered an  army to gather troops and supplies by the last week of August 1458 B.C, at the border fortress of Tjaru in the Nile Delta. 

The immediate threat facing Thutmose was the minor city state of Megiddo, which was flexing it's muscle. Now, this small city, 200 miles northeast of Tjaru,  was not a real military threat to the great Egyptian empire. But the crises of Megiddo was a matter of tenderness.  

The northwest border of Egypt was officially drawn where the coastal road crossed the Gaza Wadi. But  beyond that usually dry stream bed were the hills which formed the east bank of the river Jordan. And in those bare and barren hills were the copper mines of southern Canaan.

See, stone age pottery kilns were just able to produce temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius, which could melt copper.  And when naturally or artificially contaminated with tin or arsenic, copper made bronze.  And bronze tools had many advantages over stone. They were lighter. They held a point and an edge longer. They are easier to shape, easier to sharpen, they are durable and should they break, they can be heated until they softened, and then reformed. Or,  melted and cast as an entirely new tool. 

The Bronze Age had begun about 1,000 years before Thutmose became Pharaoh, and although copper was a relatively rare metal, it was heavily mined along the southern end of the narrow strip of arable land which connects Africa to Eurasia, called the Levantine Corridor,  Egypt had dominated the Levantine since about 1500 B.C.E., but had given up annexing the region because of resistance from the local Semitic population, called the Canaanites. It was the Canaanites who mined the copper and sold bronze to the Egyptians. But they also sold some bronze to the kingdom of Mittani, 350 miles north of Megiddo, at the northern end of the Levantine Corridor.

Mittani's (above) capital was along the Queiq river, was the city of Aleppo, one of the oldest  continuously occupied cities in the world. And Mittani was on the rise, having recently defeated the ancient power of Babylon. King Barattarna of Mittani had made a treaty with Meggido as a tentative first challenge to the Egyptians.  He supplied them with bronze chain mail and a few three man chariots. It seemed a low risk strategy as long as  Hatshepsut was sick.  After her death, Thutmose III decided to attend to these wayward Canaanites.

There was a delay in gathering the army, and Thutmose did not leave Tjaru until February of 1457 B.C. His Egyptian army was mostly infantry, perhaps 10,000 men, divided into platoons of six to ten men each, consisting of a mix of bowmen and lancers. 

The smaller mobile force of two-horse chariots were not built for long distance travel, and on the march the chariots had to be light enough for each to be carried by their shield men. On this march across the Sinai (the Red Deseret) skirmishers advanced to the front while raiding parties ranged along the flanks, gathering sheep, goats grain and water for each night’s camp. Behind came the baggage train of ox carts carrying supplies, repair tents and blacksmiths, soothsayers, priests and musicians.

These people were used to walking, and never rode on horseback, so the army did not reach the Philistine fortress of Gaza (“The key to Syria”) until mid-March.  After another 11 days marching up the coastal plain Thutmose’s army entered the port of Jamnia, near present day Tel Aviv. Here they rested while scouts brought word that the Meggido army was awaiting him on the Plain of Esdraelon, in front of the hill fortress of Megiddo. So in early May, with his communications back to Egypt secured by his navy, Thutmose swung inland, toward the small village of Yaham.

In front of Thutmose now rose a line of low hills, stretching from the northwest (Mt. Carmel at 1,740 feet) to the southeast (Mts Tabor & Gilboa, 1,929 feet). Megiddo and the Canaanite army were on the northern flank of these hills, and his generals told Thutmose there were two possible routes to attack Megiddo. 

The most direct route headed due north from Yaham and then turned northwestward on the Via Maris (sea route) to the village of Taanach, before reaching Megiddo. The longer path headed northwest from Yaham along the flank of the mountains before crossing the hills to reach the valley at the village of Yokneam. From there it was an easy backtrack southeastward to Megiddo. 

The Canaanite army had divided their infantry, with almost half guarding Taanach and the other half Yokneam. Stationed at Megiddo (in the center) were the Canaanite chariots with some infantry support, ready to fall upon either approach the Egyptians made.

However there was also a third choice. On the road north toward Yokneam there was a cutoff, a path less traveled, that ran through the village of Aruna (above, center) and then through a narrow defile, so tight that the army could pass through only single file, before debauching onto the valley directly in front of Megiddo. It was the most direct route, but Thutmose’s men would arrive piecemeal, where they could be destroyed “in detail”, one unit or even one man at a time. But this route also offered the opportunity of surprise. 

It seems that Thanuny feinted toward the two main roads, using perhaps two thirds of the army. But before dawn Thutmose lead his spear and shield men through the pass, single file; perhaps 3,000 men in all. When they stepped out of the pass it was about 1:00 p.m., 9 May , 1457 B.C. 

The Canaanite chariots, surprised by their enemies sudden appearance, hastily charged at the Egyptian spearmen, and let loose a barrage of arrows. But defended by their shield men, the Egyptian formations stood firm. And then, as the Canaanites withdrew to reform and attack again, the Egyptian ranks opened up and from the defile appeared Egyptian chariots, carried through the pass and reassembled, Like a whirlwind they fell upon the fewer Canaanite chariots.

“Even when moving at a slow pace, …(the Egyptian war chariot) shook terribly, and when driven at full speed it was only by a miracle of skill that the occupants could maintain their equilibrium…the charioteer would stand astride the front panels, keeping his right foot only inside the vehicle…the reins tied around his body so he could by throwing his weight either to the right or left…pull up or start his horses by a simple movement of the loins…he went into battle with bent bow, the string drawn back to his ear…while the shield-bearer, clinging to the body of the chariot with one hand, held out his buckler with the other to shelter his comrade.” (History of Egypt Chakdea, etc. G. Maspero. Groilier Society) 

The Canaanites panicked at the sudden Egyptian charge, and their causalities tell the story; just 83 killed, but 240 taken prisoner and 924 chariots and 2,132 horses captured. 

The Canaanite infantry on the wings, now divided by the Egyptian chariots in the center, abandoned Megiddo and scattered in retreat. 

And although the fortress held out for seven months before finally surrendering, from the moment Thutmose III reached the valley  he had ensured his capture of the hill fort of Megiddo, or, in the Canaanite language, Armageddon. And thus ended the first battle recorded in detail in history.

No one came to Meggido's rescue (above). The surrounding Canaanite cities were not likely to rush now to defend their defeated fellow Philistines.  All of northern Canaan and many Syrian princes now sent Thutmose III tribute, and even their sons to serves as hostages,

But this first campaign was just the first of 17 campaigns for Thutmose III. The following year he finished his conquest of Mittani, even crossing the Eurphates River.  Now the Assyrians, the Babylonians and Hittite Kings sent him tribute. During his entire fifty-three year reign, Thutmose III captured 350 cities, subjected many peoples, and dominated the middle east from the Euphrates River to the fourth cataract of the Nile. Under his reign, the Egyptian Empire reached it's greatest expanse. 

He rebuilt much of Karnak, along with 50 other temples up and down the Nile.  

Thutmose III  (above) died in the 54th year of his reign, some 3,500 years before today. He was entombed at Luxor (below).  He is remembered, for good reason, as "The Napoleon of Egypt".

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