Belle Gunness - Part 3
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That's BlueNile.com. Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and how. I am your Norwegian host, Tomas Vabog Thu. And tonight, dear listener, we continue our expose into the life and crimes of the most notorious Norwegian serial killer of all time, Belgenes.

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Any donation, no matter how small, is greatly appreciated. As the trial drew near, La Porte evermore became a center of busy activity such as it had never been before.

On the 29th of May, an auction took place on the Gunner's property to sell off those effects which survived the fire, including Bell's collie dog, which had been outside during the blaze. Souvenir buyers bid up everything to many times its value. A shovel worth 60 cents brought $2.10. Who knows, it might have buried Andrew Helgeline.

A single entrepreneur bought the dog, the pony and cart, even the barn cat and her kittens. Then this backwoods circus director wannabe hired Bell's last farmhand, Joe Maxon and C.C. Fish, Lamphere's private eye, and set out to tour the sticks. Maxon was always sure to be asked, Is Bell Gunn is alive? And he always answered loudly, Yes.

Maxon had been convinced from the start that he had escaped the fire by sheer luck. He told no one of his suspicions except his sister, who, later, retold his story. Evidently her brother had awoken in the middle of the night to find the widow Gunnars standing over his bed, watching him. Alarmed, he sat up. "'I just wanted to see if you were asleep,' his old bell said before quietly slipping from his room."

As she did so, he thought he saw a hammer hidden in the folds of her skirt. Stories of narrow escape were coming in from across the land by men who had answered Belle Gunness' ad in the Scandinav. They weren't made-up stories, for the men knew too many details about Belle and her farm. Some of them even had letters Belle had written in reply.

Carl Peterson from Michigan came forth with a letter delivered him from Bell, which read in part, I have decided that every applicant must make a satisfactory deposit of cash or security. Now, if you think you are able some way to put up $1,000 cash, we can talk matters over personally. If you cannot, is it worthwhile to even consider?

Not having such an amount on hand at the time saved Mr. Peterson's life. George Anderson had seen Bell's ad in Missouri. After two-way communication, he decided to visit Bell and, not being one to light the flint before it's out of the drawer, check on the farm and the sincerity of the ad's author. He had only $300 cash in his pockets.

But Bell urged him to go home, sell his large farm in Tarkio, and come back with the rest. He had suspicions. When he awoke in the dead of night to find her hovering over his pillow, that was enough. He lit out and took the next train home. But, unfortunately, there were many more men who did not have the luck of Peterson.

nor the common sense of Andersen. Families from Minnesota, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kansas, and other states wrote pleas to Sheriff Smutsan and Mayor Darrow to please find their missing son, brother, father, who they knew had gone off to meet a mail-order bride in La Porte, Indiana.

George Barry of Indiana left home in July 1905 to work for a Mrs. Gunness. He had $1,500 cash on him. He was never seen again. Herman Conitzer, also hailing from Indiana, took $5,000 from the bank and went to La Porte to marry a wealthy widow. He vanished.

Abraham Phillips, a retired railway watchman from West Virginia, left to court a rich widow in Indiana, taking $500 in cash and a diamond ring. His family never heard from him since. But a railroad watch was found in the gunner's debris. Emil Tell, from Kansas, had $5,000 in his billfold, boarded a train to La Porte to meet a widow there.

No one ever saw him again. The list continues. Men all telling relatives before they left they were Laporte-bound. Olaf Jensen was a recent immigrant from Norway. Christian Hinckley from Chetek, Wisconsin. Charles Nyberg of Philadelphia. Tunnes Leen out of Rushford, Minnesota.

E.J. Thiefland from Minneapolis, Johnny Bunter from McKeesport, Pennsylvania. They all met their fate at Belle Gunness' house. On the 9th of November, 1908, after a long, hot summer, unbearably long and hellishly hot for Ray Lamphere, who waited in his musty cell in the courthouse, the prosecution represented by Ralph N. Smith

and Lamphere's defense attorney, Wirt Warden, came together under presiding judge J.C. Richter to form a jury. Ahead of them was a trial that reporters were terming the trial of the century. Their proceedings would decide the fate of the alleged arsonist and killer, Lamphere.

The scene was La Porte County Courthouse. The building was square with round-arched windows and a peaked bell tower. Lamphere's trial would proceed in an upper courtroom. Ray Lamphere had pleaded not guilty, and the tone was set for a good fight. Challenger, Smith and Warden, friends outside of court, were braced for action.

They respected each other's intellect and each other's reputation. Smith, lanky, hollow-eyed, and severe, was a hard practicalist. Borden, squarely built and didactic, more emotional. When they faced off in court, brilliant things would happen.

First in order was the selection of a jury, and by the end of the week both attorneys felt confident that they had carved out an equal representation of open-minded and fair men from among La Porte County. Speaking in similes, the Lamphere trial has been likened to a May Day celebration, wrote the allegorical hands of Harry Darling, the Argus editor.

In the spotlight is the maypole, and stretching from the top are twelve long ribbons, each juror holding a ribbon. The entire case of the prosecution hangs on conclusive proof that the Gunner's woman is dead. Otherwise, the maypole falls in a crash, and the state's argument is broken and shattered.

Unless this spider web of evidence circumstantial is spun around the prisoner, the ribbons will be handed back as they were received, white and spotless. End quote. The actual trial opened on the morning of Friday the 13th of November, for many a date with ominous overtones.

The courtroom was jammed with both men and women, most of them having known the lady called Belle Gunness personally, many of them acquaintances of the defendant Ray Lamphere.

It was up to Chief Prosecutor Smith to prove that the headless figure found in the fire was Belle, and to prove that she died by fire, and that it was Ray Lamphere that, out of revenge, had set the fire. It would then be up to Rutt Warden to cast as many doubts as possible upon the prosecution's view.

Coroner Charles Mack, the prosecution's first witness, was brought to the stand to convince the jury that the headless cadaver found in the rubble was certainly that of Bell Gunness. He also reviewed the conditions of the other charred skeletons and reviewed the condition of several organs taken from the fire victims. Although professional and concise, defense lawyer Warden punctured holes in his credibility.

Here is a transcript from his cross-examination. Warden. Are you positive that this bone I show you is a cervical vertebrae? Dr. Mack. I am not. Warden. Well, doctor, are you certain that this bone I present is a jawbone? Dr. Mack. It is. Warden. Is it the bone of a human being? Dr. Mack. I do not know. Warden.

Would you state, Dr. Mack, from present observation that this bone is from the upper or lower maxillary? Dr. Mack, I could not positively state that it is a bone at all. End quote. The prosecution regrouped and reworked its strategy. Smith knew that he needed to disprove two things conjectured by the defense in its opening oratory.

1. That Gunner's children did not die by the hands of their foster mother who poisoned them with strychnine, prior to her absconding to parts unknown. 2. Belle had not murdered a woman and left her body in her place, hoping to fool the law. A couple of doctors who had examined the three dead children related the conditions of the deceased.

They stated that they believed the youngsters had died of asphyxia from smoke fire, not poison. But when Warden cross-examined Dr. H. H. Long, who viewed the remains of child Lucy, he blew holes into the diagnoses. Again, I retail to you, dear listener, transcripts from the trial. Warden.

On the body of this child, Lucy, Dr. Long, did you observe any ecchymosis spots? Dr. Long. No, sir, none. Warden. Such spots invariably appear when death is due to suffocation. Do they not, doctor? Dr. Long. Yes, sir, that is correct. End quote.

It became more and more apparent that a defense attorney warden had indeed done his homework.

A Dr. J. L. Gray, a cold tactician and master of the post-mortem under Smith's steady direction, demonstrated how smothering by fire makes the human hand clench into a fist in the exact same manner as were the hands of the flame-charred Gunner's family, including the hand of the headless woman. He backed his testimony with facts, and the jury was captive.

But the fighting defender was not to be outdone, prompting the following transcript. Warden. Are you familiar, Doctor, with the post-mortem condition of a body when death has been caused by strychnine? Dr. Gray. I have seen several. Warden. Would strychnine leave the hand clenched as this hand was, referring to the dead woman's hand? Dr. Gray. Yes. Warden.

It is the usual symptom, is it not, Dr. Gray? Yes. Warden. Isn't it a fact that when you made your examination and wrote a verdict, you stated it was impossible to determine the cause of death, Dr. Gray? Yes, sir. Warden. Did you make a chemical analysis of the stomach, Dr. Gray? Dr. Gray. No, sir. Warden.

Taking the body of the condition in which you found it, if you had found strychnine and arsenic in the stomach in sufficient quantities to produce death, what would you say was the cause of death? This last question was hypothetical and didn't need to be answered. Nor did Norton wait for a comment.

He had made his point, and to hammer it home, he managed to dredge from a subsequent witness, Dr. J. William Meyer, a comment that horrified the prosecution team that had hoped to use him to their benefit instead. In reference to the headless corpse, the alleged Bell Gunners, this dialogue occurred. "'Warden, could you form any fixed idea on the cause of death?'

Dr. Meyer. No, warden. What is your opinion, doctor? Dr. Meyer. Contraction of the heart, like some case of poisoning. From what I have heard of the stomach, the contraction will probably have been due to strychnine. The trial was definitely leaning in the direction of the defense.

Ralph Smith, though, was not totally unarmed against the expectedly clever council antagonist. As the first week of the trial drew to a close, he produced a chilling surprise.

According to him, backed by Mrs. Gunner's dentist, Ira P. Norton, they had in their possession the widow's teeth. Not merely her dentures, but her real teeth that had been rooted in her jaw. Allegedly, these prizes were discovered in the gutted farmhouse.

The dentist had at one time given these teeth gold crowns and recognized his own handiwork. Smith. Could they have been pulled, Dr. Norton? Dr. Norton. No, sir. Not even a dentist could have pulled the natural teeth from Mrs. Gunness's jaw still attached to the crowns as these are.

What Dr. Norton professed, therefore, was that if those were Mrs. Gunness's teeth, the only way they could have been loosened was by her death in extreme heat such as fire. During the testimony, Ray Lamphere was seen staring at the grotesque set of teeth lying mute on the evidence table.

Between the hideous objects, the stifling heat of the courtroom, and a hint of the case turning smack against him, he seemed to be drawing a pale shade of green. His attorney, Warden, must have spotted him, too, for he suddenly leaned over to toss him a glance of reassurance.

Despite the weak ending on somewhat of a positive note for the prosecution, everyone agreed that the weak belonged to Warden, to the defense, to Lamphear. There were many who pointed out that gold crowns on one's tooth were not a rare thing. Perhaps, more importantly, in the guts of the farmhouse and all around it, there were other bones and other teeth found everywhere.

Who was to say that the tooth definitely belonged to Belle? The jury remained quiet on this issue, as indeed they should have at this stage of the game. But the citizens of La Porte were charged. The weekend brought more gossip in and about town. The kitchen tables in the markets, at the park, in the schools, before and after church services...

And at the bars, citizens replayed the highlights of the trial in casual banter amongst themselves. Pre-assumptions hadn't really changed. Those who wanted Lamphere to hang were even more adamant now, and those who saw him innocent would equally argue their cause to death. The second week of the trial opened three days later, on the 16th of November, a Monday.

The crowd within the hall had grown. The courtroom was jammed to the doors. Standees crowded the aisles and were pressed in thick along the walls. Jacob Tagg, the bailiff, was detailed to keep order in the crowd, intent only on listening. They gave him no trouble.

Much of the trial's reconvening concentrated on Ray Lamphere's taunting of Belle Gunness after Andrew Helgelein came to town from South Dakota. Lamphere's explanations for harassing her didn't stand up under fire. He claimed the widow fired him merely to court the big Swede and avoid paying him wages owed.

The prosecution even hinted at Lemphir's taking part in the South Dakotan's demise, and of his knowing, but keeping secret, Bell's grisly graveyard company. Men who knew and drank with the defendant were summoned to the witness stand to testify against him, telling of the threats they heard muttered over a round of beers.

One townsman, William Slater, quoted Lamphere as uttering a string of ominous words. I quote, He told me I know something about that old woman, and she has to come my way. She's having me pinched all the time and damned if I ain't getting tired of it. If she don't leave me alone, I'll send her over the road to the penitentiary. That quick.

As states attorney Smith, near the end of his case presentation, he strove to remind the court one last time for good measure that that was indeed Belgin's body left in the cinders, not some poor wretched woman of dubious existence deposited by the Hydra. Witnesses were called forth that had been at the scene of the disaster site immediately after the fire subsided.

One woman painted a pathetic picture of the Gunners' family's final moments. Three children and the mother huddled together on the bed, still there, burned to death, when the mattress fell through the upper story into the cellar, where she claimed she saw them. The defense had argued that there had not been any bodies on any bed,

but were found separately, around the cellar, indicating signs that they were already dead before any fire had started, thus poisoned in advance by Bell. Sheriff Smutser, too, described how he had seen the gunners petrified in pitiful frozen rides of pain across a mattress. The courtroom gasped, but Smith should have stopped there.

for he had the courtroom by the strings. But before adjourning, he made the mistake of calling to the stand William Humphrey, one of the first at the fire who had helped Joe Maxon try to rouse the sleeping gunnesses, that fateful 28th of April morning. From transcripts. Smith. At what time did you reach the scene of the fire? Humphrey. At a few minutes after four in the morning.

"'Smith, what did you see, Mr. Humphrey?' "'Humphrey, William Clifford and Joe Maxon were just breaking in the front door. I climbed up a ladder and looked in the windows of the two rooms on the west side. I saw mattresses and a bed clothing, but no people. Soon the walls began to fall and the roof caved in. "'Smith, were you present when the bodies were found?'

Humphrey. Yes, sir. It was my shovel that struck one of them. I assisted in taking them out and placing them in the undertaker's wagon. Smith. You say you looked in the window during the fire, Mr. Humphrey? What exactly did you see? Humphrey.

End quote.

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Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. So far it was still all opinion. But one thing was certain. No one lingered too long on McClung Road much after dark. Even those who boasted she was dead and good riddance to her

even they would tap their team horses gently with the whip to quicken their canter when finding themselves alongside the jagged frame of what had once been gunnus's death-house

On Friday, the 20th of November, the defense opened its argument. To save Ray Lamphere from the gallows was Warden's aim, and Warden saw himself as the man for the job. He saw his main goal to convince the jury that Belle Gunness was still alive.

that she was still out there, despite the teeth that her dentist said couldn't be extracted, unless by her death, despite everything else that Ralph Smith, Sheriff Smutzer, and the Republicans claimed. Again, the courtroom was packed. Nearly 500 people in a room, meant to hold half that amount.

Warden knew he would have a difficult time disproving the gold-capped teeth theory, but he believed in his heart, and he knew he must duplicate that belief in the hearts of the jurors, that if those teeth had actually come from Mrs. Gunness's mouth, then she threw them into the fire after the fact. If it was not Mrs. Gunness in that fire, found in the cellar among the debris,

Then whose headless body was it? Obviously, the victim had been a female. Doctors proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. But the prosecution had seemed to overlook the fact that Lady Greed was not above killing other women, despite her propensity for male cash.

There had already been an unidentified woman found in the hog yard, as well as her own stepdaughter, Jenny. To show a real probability of the headless cadaver as being just one more of Bell Gunness' victims, placed in proxy, Warden called to the stand one John Anderson, who lived immediately down the road from Bell, and who had a high reputation in the community.

Anderson had seen something suspicious just two days before the farmhouse burned. We return to the transcript. Warden. Mr. Anderson, did you see Mrs. Gunness shortly before the fire? Anderson. Yes, I did. On the Saturday evening before the fire. She was driving by in her buggy, and she stopped to ask how the flowers were getting along.

Was anybody with her, Anderson? There was a strange woman with her, Warden. Describe her, please, Mr. Anderson. Anderson. She was a large woman, not quite as large as Mrs. Gunness. Warden. Did you ever see her again, Anderson? Never. After the fire, I told the sheriff about her. End quote.

Anderson's testimony shocked the courtroom, greatly surging the defense's staying power in three relevant ways. First, there was allegedly another woman present in Mrs. Gunner's company only forty-eight hours before the fire. Second, and equally beneficial, by describing the mysterious visitor as not quite as large as Mrs. Gunner's,

The description supported earlier testimony from Dr. Gray, who, during autopsy, estimated that the victim had weighed, before fire shrinkage, no more than 200 pounds, some 80 pounds less than the Norwegian temptress. Third, the fact that Sheriff Smutsa hadn't mentioned Anderson's statement looked very bad for the prosecution.

Prosecutor Smith, cross-examination, fell on deaf ears. Anderson was stalwart, climax was high, and Warden wouldn't let it drop. Next, he summoned McClung Road neighbor Daniel Hudson, who knew Mrs. Gunness well. He lived within walking distance, and he had spent a season last year working for her five days a week.

He had an astounding story to tell, and he told it with dramatic gusto as follows. Warden, have you seen Mrs. Gunness after the fire? Hudson, on the road near the hog pen. Warden, what date did you see her? Hudson,

On the ninth day of July, I was coming from town with a hayrack, and I saw through the trees Mrs. Gunness and a man walking in the orchard. Even at a distance, I could recognize her plainly. I knew her size, I knew her shape, and I knew her lumbering walk. I never saw another woman who walked like her.

She had on a light skirt, black waist, a wide-trimmed hat with a black veil that came down to the chin and a white veil over that. There was a man with her. He weighed about 165 pounds. He had a grey moustache and grey hair. Warden. What did you do? Hudson. I started up my horses to try to get up the hill to the orchard before she could get away.

But when I got within two wagon lengths of the buggy, they ran to it, clambered in, and raced straight for the main road. I tried to follow them, but they got ahead of me, and I did not like to follow them anymore. There was a good chance of me getting a chunk of lead, end quote. Warden had delivered another killing blow to the prosecution.

Hare was not only a reliable townsman, vouching in behalf of Belle's longevity, but the fact that she had been accompanied by a man, a man who looked nothing like Lamphere, might answer many who all along figured Belle to have had an accomplice and had tried to pin that role on young brown-haired Ray Lamphere. The fact that the couple escaped when Hudson neared them was damaging.

Mr. Hudson's two daughters, Eveline and Eldora, followed suit. Both had, on separate occasions in and around July, seen Bell Gunners, and the same man either cutting through the backwoods of the farm or travelling in a buggy down McClung Road. Of her experience, the older of the two, Eveline, testified. She was in a buggy with a man.

She had on two veils. The black one was over her face. When she saw me, she turned her face away from me. End quote. Two boys playing near Pine Lake Cemetery also claimed to have seen the woman. The Thursday after Independence Day. Glancing at a pocket calendar, Warden announced that that was the 9th of July, the same day Daniel Hudson had spied her.

They saw her face when she lifted a pair of veils to take a sip from a water pump. Now came time to remove all doubt from other haranguing questions, such as were Myrtle, Lucy and Philip Gunners burned to death in bed, or were the bodies already dead, in the cellar indicating they were slain, like Jenny before them, at the hands of Belle?

In earlier testimony, William Humphrey swore that he had seen the beds empty when he peered into the windows of the Blazing Farmhouse. In conflict, Sheriff Smutsur had already been one of those who claimed to have seen the gunners on a mattress. Now, when Warden resurrected the issue and called several eyewitnesses to the stand to verify the defense's viewpoint,

A brief uproar occurred when one witness angrily denounced the sheriff as a liar. He claimed that he had heard Smutser tell a reporter before the trial that he did not see the bodies until they were removed from sight. Of course, this spark of controversy was worth solid gold to Warden.

Another witness, a woman who drove to the farm the morning of the fire, replied, I was sitting right there, on top of the wall. I saw them digging. The remains of the piano were on top of the debris above the bodies. I couldn't see anything but a little ashes under the bodies. When that had been shoveled away, I could see the floor as plain as I see the floor of this courtroom."

The last witness for the defense came to the stand on Tuesday, the 24th of November. He was Dr. Walter Haynes, toxicology professor, who had chemically analyzed Andrew Helgelein's stomach and found doses of the poison strychnine more than enough to kill a man. Warden had commissioned him to also analyze the stomachs of the Gunner's children.

and the unidentified woman absent ahead. While lethal quantities of strychnine were evident in the jar in which that the stomachs were packaged, the doctor admitted that, because all three stomachs sat in the same solution, it was impossible to separate from what stomach, if not all, the poison came.

But the defense nevertheless found opportunity to take advantage of Dr. Haynes' learned presence, because State's Attorney Smith raised the possibility that the strychnine actually came from embalming fluid. Warden put that inference to task. No, the doctor heartily responded. There is no strychnine, no poison in such fluid. And with that, the defense rested.

The following day, both the defense and prosecution presented their closing statements. Warden asked for his client's life to be spared in light of what he called circumstantial evidence, and Smith called for death, per evidence sustaining beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury, sullen-faced, retreated to the discussion room. They would make no decision that night, hopelessly divided.

The following morning, Thanksgiving Day, they arose early, but an evening's rest still had not curbed the nagging doubts each of them had. The day waned before they came at last to a compromise. Outside, Laporte waited in the rain and under the crackle of thunder. Late afternoon, the crowd in the street saw the courtroom lights flicker on

and it drew like a tidal wave toward the steps of the public building. Up the stairs rushed the throng to where, at last, in that courtroom, where so many had spent the last three weeks, they expected closure to their curiosity, maybe to their nightmares. After the place quieted, Judge Richter eyed the twelve exasperated faces. Gentlemen of the jury,

"'Have you reached a verdict?' the foreman stood. "'We have, your honor, but I wish to make a statement before I deliver our verdict to the court.' Richter shook his head. "'I am not at liberty to hear any statement until the verdict has been received and read.' Silence pervaded as the bailiff carried the jury's vote on a small white piece of paper to the judge.

Judge Richter read it aloud: "We find the defendant guilty of arson." It took Ray Lamphere a moment to realize that his life had been spared, thanks to Warden, of arson. The words meant prison, but not the rope. The collar of his shirt seemed looser now. The jury's foreman now communicated the reasons for their decision.

We hereby state that it was our judgment, in the consideration of this case, that the adult body found in the ruins of the fire was that of Bell Gunners, and that case was decided by us on an entirely different proposition. Warden and Smith, both disappointed that they had not won their stand, were nevertheless professional men, who knew that sometimes the best values come in compromise.

However, Smith would never stop believing that Lamphere had killed Bell Gunness. Warden would always believe that Bell Gunness lived on. Warden was, in essence, the more correct. Ray Lamphere was given 2 to 20 years in the state penitentiary. But the community of La Porte, which never quite believed that Bell was gone,

was sentenced to two years of looking over its shoulder every time a cricket stopped chirping behind them in the dark. Ray Lamphere was removed to the state penitentiary in Michigan City, not far from La Porte. But his stay was brief. He contracted disease not long after he arrived and died a little more than a year later on the 30th of December 1909.

He passed away, jaundiced and weak, obsessed with Belle Gunness. All told, he was another one of her victims. During his incarceration, he would often mention Belle to his cellmate, Harry Myers, a convicted thief. Lamphere, said Myers, would repeat her name daily, sometimes looking out the barred window of their cell towards the barren stretch of Indiana prairie and mutter.

"'She's out there, Harry.' When released, Myers told of a strange incident. One evening, while chatting, both men were eyeing some visitors leaving the prison. A woman passed below their window, buxom, blonde, and earthy-looking. "'She's about the size of my old gal,' said Lampfear. "'People think she's dead. She's not dead, Harry.'

She had a large scar on her left thigh, but that body that was burned, it had no scar. Besides, and here he paused, measured his words, still staring out the window, watching that woman, I know where Belle is, and she's not far from him, believe me. Wherever she was, Lamphair was but one of many who went to their graves convinced that Belle Gunness lived on.

Well into the 1930s, almost a quarter of a century after the trial, she popped up everywhere, from Indiana to the East Coast. Perhaps, says the La Porte Public Library, she murdered again. There were numerous sightings of the murderess across the country, the La Porte County Historical Society tells us,

She was a reputed whore in a brothel down south, and a madame on the Atlantic coast. Some believe that she escaped back to her home country of Norway. Nowhere else is her presence felt stronger than in La Porte. Some of the same families still live in La Porte, although the main players are all gone. A new house, built in the 1950s, stand on the old foundation of the Gunness farmhouse.

The town has grown and appreciates its rich Indiana history, of which Bell Gunner's memory belongs on the darker side of it. Attorney Verd Warden remained in town after the trial and continued to practice law. He was another of the many central figures who remained interested in her whereabouts. Scoffing the jury's view that the adult body found in the ruins of the fire was that of Bell Gunner's,

He passed away in 1943, never doubting, said his wife, Bell's escape. If there's one thing that my family and friends know me for, it's being an amazing gift giver. I owe it all to Celebrations Passport from 1-800-Flowers.com, my one-stop shopping site that has amazing gifts for every occasion. With Celebrations Passport, I get free shipping on thousands of amazing gifts. And the more gifts I give, the more perks and rewards I earn.

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I hope you enjoyed this Norwegian special. There is one more famous Norwegian serial killer that I will cover, but I will not do so until the Serial Killer podcast has more downloads than the entire population of Sweden, i.e. 9.9 million. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. I have been your host, Thomas Vabog Thun.

Doing this podcast is a labor of love, and I couldn't have done it without my loyal listeners. This podcast has been able to bring serial killer stories to life, especially thanks to those of you that support me via Patreon. You can do so at theserialkillerpodcast.com slash donate. There are especially a few patrons that have stayed loyal for a long time.

Your monthly contributions really help keep this podcast thriving. You have my deepest gratitude. As always, thank you, dear listener, for listening.

And feel free to leave a review on your favorite podcast app, Facebook, or website. And please do subscribe to the show if you enjoy it. Thank you. Good night and good luck.