The Black Widow of the Heartland: Miss Belle Sorenson Gunness (1859 – 1908 ?)

Between 1879 – 1908 she killed both men and children  by Poisoning (strychnine) / Bludgeoning (She killed most of her suitors and boyfriends, and her two daughters, Myrtle and Lucy. She may also have killed both of her husbands and all of her children, on different occasions) for  collecting life insurance, cash and other valuables, and eliminating witnesses, in both Illinois/Indiana, USA

On April 28, 1908 the bodies of Gunness' children were found in the home's wreckage, but the headless adult female corpse found with them was never positively identified. She was never tracked down and her death has never been confirmed.

Belle Gunnes:

Norwegian born Belle Gunness immigrated to the U.S. in 1881. A series of suspicious fires and deaths (mostly resulting in insurance awards) followed. Belle also began posting notices in lovelorn columns to entice wealthy men to her farm, after which they were never seen again. Authorities eventually found the remains of over 40 victims on her property, but Belle disappeared without a trace.

Her Profile:

Serial killer. Born Brynhild Paulsdatter Strseth on November 22, 1859 in Selbu, Norway. The daughter of a stonemason, Belle Gunness immigrated to America in 1881 in search of wealth. What followed were a series of insurance frauds and crimes, escalating in size and danger.

Not long after Gunness married Mads Albert Sorenson in 1884, their store and home mysteriously burned down. The couple claimed the insurance money for both. Soon after, Sorenson died of heart failure on the one day his two life insurance policies overlapped. Though her husband's family demanded an inquiry, no charges were filed. It is believed the couple produced two children whom Gunness poisoned in infancy for the insurance money. Several more unexplained deaths followed, including the infant daughter of her new husband, Peter Gunness, followed by Peter Gunness himself. Her adopted daughter Jennie's body would also be found on Belle's property. Gunness then began meeting wealthy men through a lovelorn column. Her suitors were her next victims, each of whom brought cash to her farm and then disappeared forever: John Moo, Henry Gurholdt, Olaf Svenherud, Ole B. Budsburg, Olaf Lindbloom, Andrew Hegelein, to name just a few.

In 1908, just when Hegelein's brother became suspicious and Gunness's luck seemed to be running out, her farmhouse burnt to the ground. In the smoldering ruins workmen discovered four skeletons. Three were identified as her foster children. However the fourth, believed to be Gunness, was inexplicably missing its skull. After the fire, her victims were unearthed from their shallow graves around the farm. All told, the remains of more than forty men and children were exhumed.

Ray Lamphere, Gunness's hired hand, was arrested for murder and arson on May 22, 1908. He was found guilty of arson, but cleared of murder. He died in prison, but not before revealing the truth about Belle Gunness and her crimes, including burning her own house down. The body that was recovered was not hers. Gunness had planned the entire thing, and skipped town after withdrawing most of her money from her bank accounts. She was never tracked down and her death has never been confirmed.

The Details:

Belle Sorenson Gunness (born as Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth; November 11, 1859, Selbu, Norway – April 28, 1908?, La Porte, Indiana) was a Norwegian-American serial killer.

Standing six feet tall tall and weighing over 200 pounds, she was a physically strong woman. She killed most of her suitors and boyfriends, and her two daughters, Myrtle and Lucy. She may also have killed both of her husbands and all of her children, on different occasions. Her apparent motives involved collecting life insurance, cash and other valuables, and eliminating witnesses. Reports estimate that she killed between 25 and 40 people over several decades.

Her early years:

Gunness' origins are a matter of some debate. Most of her biographers state that she was born on November 11, 1859, near the lake of Selbu, Sør-Trøndelag, Norway, and christened Brynhild Paulsdatter Størset. Her parents were Paul Pedersen Størset (a stonemason) and Berit Olsdatter. She was the youngest of their eight children. They lived at Størsetgjerdet, a very small cotter's farm in Innbygda, 60 km southeast of Trondheim, the largest city in central Norway (Trøndelag).

An Irish TV documentary by Anne Berit Vestby aired on September 4, 2006, tells a common, but unverified, story about Gunness' early life. The story holds that, in 1877, Gunness attended a country dance while pregnant. There she was attacked by a man who kicked her in the abdomen, causing her to miscarry the child. The man, who came from a rich family, was never prosecuted by the Norwegian authorities. According to people who knew her, her personality changed markedly. The man who attacked her died shortly afterwards. His cause of death was said to be stomach cancer. Having grown up in poverty, Gunness took service the next year on a large, wealthy farm and served there for three years in order to pay for a trip across the Atlantic.

Following the example of a sister, Nellie Larson, who had emigrated to America earlier, Gunness moved to the United States in 1881 and assumed a more American-style name. Initially, she worked as a servant.

Her first Victim:

In 1884, Gunness married Mads Ditlev Anton Sorenson in Chicago, Illinois, where, two years later, they opened a confectionery store. The business was not successful; within a year the shop mysteriously burned down. They collected insurance, which paid for another home.

Though some researchers assert that the Sorenson union produced no offspring, other investigators report that the couple had four children: Caroline, Axel, Myrtle, and Lucy. Caroline and Axel died in infancy, allegedly of acute colitis. The symptoms of acute colitis — nausea, fever, diarrhea, and lower abdominal pain and cramping — are also symptoms of many forms of poisoning. Both Caroline's and Axel's lives were reportedly insured, and the insurance company paid out.

A May 7, 1908 article in The New York Times states that two children belonging to Gunness and her husband Mads Sorensen were interred in her plot in Forest Home cemetery.

On June 13, 1900, Gunness and her family were counted on the United States Census in Chicago. The census recorded her as the mother of four children, of whom only two were living: Myrtle A., 3, and Lucy B., 1. An adopted 10-year-old girl, identified possibly as Morgan Couch but apparently later known as Jennie Olsen, also was counted in the household.

Sorenson died on July 30, 1900, reportedly the only day on which two life insurance policies on him overlapped. The first doctor to see him thought he was suffering from strychnine poisoning. However, the Sorensons' family doctor had been treating him for an enlarged heart, and he concluded that death had been caused by heart failure. An autopsy was considered unnecessary because the death was not thought suspicious. Gunness told the doctor that she had given her late husband medicinal "powders" to help him feel better.

She applied for the insurance money the day after her husband's funeral. Sorenson's relatives claimed that Gunness had poisoned her husband to collect on the insurance. Surviving records suggest that an inquest was ordered. It is unclear, however, whether that investigation actually occurred or Sorenson's body was ever exhumed to check for arsenic, as his relatives demanded. The insurance companies awarded her $8,500 (about $217,000 in 2008 dollars), with which she bought a farm on the outskirts of La Porte, Indiana.

The suspicion of murder:

In 1901, Gunness purchased a house on McClung Road. It has been reported that both the boat and carriage houses burned to the ground shortly after she acquired the property.

As she was preparing to move from Chicago to LaPorte, she became re-acquainted with a recent widower, Peter Gunness, also Norwegian-born. They were married in LaPorte on April 1, 1902; just one week after the ceremony, Peter's infant daughter died (of uncertain causes) while alone in the house with Belle. In December 1902, Peter himself met with a "tragic accident". According to Belle, he was reaching for his slippers next to the kitchen stove when he was scalded with brine. She later declared that, in fact, part of a sausage-grinding machine fell from a high shelf, causing a fatal head injury. A year later, Peter's brother, Gust, took Peter's older daughter, Swanhilde, to Wisconsin. She is the only child to have survived living with Belle.

Her husband's death netted Gunness another $3,000 (some sources say $4,000). Local people refused to believe that her husband could be so clumsy; he had run a hog farm on the property and was known to be an experienced butcher; the district coroner reviewed the case and unequivocally announced that he had been murdered. He convened a coroner's jury to look into the matter. Meanwhile, Jennie Olsen, then 14, was overheard confessing to a classmate: "My mama killed my papa. She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died. Don't tell a soul."

Jennie was brought before the coroner's jury but denied having made the remark. Gunness, meanwhile, convinced the coroner that she was innocent of any wrongdoing. She did not mention that she was pregnant, which would have inspired sympathy, but in May 1903 a baby boy, Phillip, joined the family. In late 1906 Belle told neighbors that her foster daughter, Jennie Olsen, had gone away to a Lutheran College in Los Angeles (some neighbors were informed that it was a finishing school for young ladies). In fact, Jennie's body would later be found buried on her adoptive mother's property.

Between 1903 and 1906 Belle continued to run her farm. In 1907 Gunness employed a single farm hand, Ray Lamphere, to help with chores.

The Suitors:

Around the same time, Gunness inserted the following advertisement in the matrimonial columns of all the Chicago daily newspapers and those of other large Midwestern cities:

Personal — comely widow who owns a large farm in one of the finest districts in La Porte County, Indiana, desires to make the acquaintance of a gentleman equally well provided, with view of joining fortunes. No replies by letter considered unless sender is willing to follow answer with personal visit. Triflers need not apply.

Several middle-aged men of means responded to Gunness' ads. One of these was John Moe, who arrived from Elbow Lake, Minnesota. He had brought more than $1,000 with him to pay off her mortgage, or so he told neighbors, whom Gunness introduced him to as her cousin. He disappeared from her farm within a week of his arrival. Next came George Anderson from Tarkio, Missouri who, like Peter Gunness and John Moe, was an immigrant from Norway.

During dinner with Anderson, she raised the issue of her mortgage. Anderson agreed that he would pay this off if they decided to wed. Late that night, Anderson awoke to see her standing over him, holding a guttering candle in her hand and with a strange, sinister expression on her face. Without uttering a word, she ran from the room. Anderson fled from the house, soon taking a train to Missouri.

The suitors kept coming, but none, except for Anderson, ever left the Gunness farm. By this time, she had begun ordering huge trunks to be delivered to her home. Hack driver Clyde Sturgis delivered many such trunks to her from La Porte and later remarked how the heavyset woman would lift these enormous trunks "like boxes of marshmallows", tossing them onto her wide shoulders and carrying them into the house. She kept the shutters of her house closed day and night; farmers traveling past the dwelling at night saw her digging in the hog pen.

Ole B. Budsberg, an elderly widower from Iola, Wisconsin, appeared next. He was last seen alive at the La Porte Savings Bank on April 6, 1907, when he mortgaged his Wisconsin land there, signing over a deed and obtaining several thousand dollars in cash. Ole B. Budsberg's sons, Oscar and Mathew Budsberg, had no idea that their father had gone off to visit Gunness. When they finally discovered his destination, they wrote to her; she promptly responded, saying she had never seen their father. Several other middle-aged men appeared and disappeared in brief visits to the Gunness farm throughout 1907. Then, in December 1907, Andrew Helgelien, a bachelor farmer from Aberdeen, South Dakota, wrote to her and was warmly received. The pair exchanged many letters, until a letter that overwhelmed Helgelien, written in Gunness' own careful handwriting and dated January 13, 1908. This letter was later found at the Helgelien farm. It read:

    “To the Dearest Friend in the World: No woman in the world is happier than I am. I know that you are now to come to me and be my own. I can tell from your letters that you are the man I want. It does not take one long to tell when to like a person, and you I like better than anyone in the world, I know. Think how we will enjoy each other's company. You, the sweetest man in the whole world. We will be all alone with each other. Can you conceive of anything nicer? I think of you constantly. When I hear your name mentioned, and this is when one of the dear children speaks of you, or I hear myself humming it with the words of an old love song, it is beautiful music to my ears. My heart beats in wild rapture for you, My Andrew, I love you. Come prepared to stay forever.”

In response to her letter, Helgelien flew to her side in January 1908. He had with him a check for $2,900, his savings, which he had drawn from his local bank. A few days after Helgelien arrived, he and Gunness appeared at the Savings Bank in La Porte and deposited the check. Helgelien vanished a few days later, but Gunness appeared at the Savings Bank to make a $500 deposit and another deposit of $700 in the State Bank. At this time, she started to have problems with Ray Lamphere.

In March 1908, Gunness sent several letters to a farmer and horse dealer in Topeka, Kansas named Lon Townsend, inviting him to visit her; he decided to put off the visit until spring, and thus did not see her before a fire at her farm. Gunness was also in correspondence with a man from Arkansas and sent him a letter dated May 4, 1908. He would have visited her, but did not because of the fire at her farm. Gunness allegedly promised marriage to a suitor Bert Albert, which did not go through because of his lack of wealth.

The turning point:

The hired hand Ray Lamphere was deeply in love with Gunness; he performed any chore for her, No matter how gruesome. He became jealous of the many men who arrived to court his employer and began making scenes. She fired him on February 3, 1908. Shortly after dispensing with Lamphere, she presented herself at the La Porte courthouse. She declared that her former employee was not in his right mind and was a menace to the public. She somehow convinced local authorities to hold a sanity hearing. Lamphere was pronounced sane and released. Gunness was back a few days later to complain to the sheriff that Lamphere had visited her farm and argued with her. She contended that he posed a threat to her family and had Lamphere arrested for trespassing.  Lamphere returned again and again to see her, but she drove him away. Lamphere made thinly disguised threats; on one occasion, he confided to farmer William Slater, "Helgelien won't bother me no more. We fixed him for keeps."  Helgelien had long since disappeared from the precincts of La Porte, or so it was believed. However, his brother, Asle Helgelien, was disturbed when Andrew failed to return home and he wrote to Belle in Indiana, asking her about his sibling's whereabouts. Gunness wrote back, telling Asle Helgelien that his brother was not at her farm and probably went to Norway to visit relatives. Asle Helgelien wrote back saying that he did not believe his brother would do that; moreover, he believed that his brother was still in the La Porte area, the last place he was seen or heard from. Gunness brazened it out; she told him that if he wanted to come and look for his brother, she would help conduct a search, but she cautioned him that searching for missing persons was an expensive proposition. If she were to be involved in such a manhunt, she stated, Asle Helgelien should be prepared to pay her for her efforts. Asle Helgelien did come to La Porte, but not until May.

Lamphere represented an unresolved danger to her; now Asle Helgelien was making inquiries that could very well send her to the gallows. She told a lawyer in La Porte, M.E. Leliter, that she feared for her life and that of her children. Ray Lamphere, she said, had threatened to kill her and burn her house down. She wanted to make out a will, in case Lamphere went through with his threats. Leliter complied and drew up her will. She left her entire estate to her children and then departed Leliter's offices. She went to one of the La Porte banks holding the mortgage for her property and paid this off. She did not go to the police to tell them about Lamphere's allegedly life-threatening conduct. The reason for this, most later concluded, was that there had been no threats; she was merely setting the stage for her own arson.

Lamphere suspected of arson and murder:

Joe Maxson, who had been hired to replace Lamphere in February 1908, awoke in the early hours of April 28, 1908, smelling smoke in his room, which was on the second floor of the Gunness house. He opened the hall door to a sheet of flames. Maxson screamed Gunness' name and those of her children but got no response. He slammed the door and then, in his underwear, leapt from the second-story window of his room, barely surviving the fire that was closing in about him. He raced to town to get help, but by the time the old-fashioned hook and ladder arrived at the farm at early dawn the farmhouse was a gutted heap of smoking ruins. Four bodies were found inside the house. One of the bodies was that of a woman who could not immediately be identified as Gunness, since she had no head. The head was never found. The bodies of her children were found still in their beds. County Sheriff Smutzer had somehow heard about Lamphere’s alleged threats; he took one look at the carnage and quickly sought out the ex-handyman. Leliter came forward to recount his tale about Gunness' will and how she feared Lamphere would kill her and her family and burn her house down.

Lamphere did not help his cause much. At the moment Sheriff Smutzer confronted him and before a word was uttered by the lawman, Lamphere exclaimed, "Did Widow Gunness and the kids get out all right?" He was then told about the fire, but he denied having anything to do with it, claiming that he was not near the farm when the blaze occurred. A youth, John Solyem, was brought forward. He said that he had been watching the Gunness place and that he saw Lamphere running down the road from the Gunness house just before the structure erupted in flames. Lamphere snorted to the boy: "You wouldn't look me in the eye and say that!"

"Yes, I will", replied Solyem. "You found me hiding behind the bushes and you told me you'd kill me if I didn't get out of there." Lamphere was arrested and charged with murder and arson. Then scores of investigators, sheriff's deputies, coroner's men and many volunteers began to search the ruins for evidence.

The body of the headless woman was of deep concern to La Porte residents. C. Christofferson, a neighboring farmer, took one look at the charred remains of this body and said that it was not the remains of Belle Gunness. So did another farmer, L. Nicholson, and so did Mrs. Austin Cutler, an old friend of Gunness. More of Gunness' old friends, Mrs. May Olander and Mr. Sigward Olsen, arrived from Chicago. They examined the remains of the headless woman and said it was not Gunness.

Doctors then measured the remains, and, making allowances for the missing neck and head, stated the corpse was that of a woman who stood five feet three inches tall and weighed no more than 150 pounds. Friends and neighbors, as well as the La Porte clothiers who made her dresses and other garments, swore that Gunness was taller than 5'8" and weighed between 180 and 200 pounds. Detailed measurements of the body were compared with those on file with several La Porte stores where she purchased her apparel.

When the two sets of measurements were compared, the authorities concluded that the headless woman could not possibly have been Belle Gunness, even when the ravages of the fire on the body were taken into account. (The flesh was badly burned but intact). Moreover, Dr. J. Meyers examined the internal organs of the dead woman. He sent stomach contents of the victims to a pathologist in Chicago, who reported months later that the organs contained lethal doses of strychnine.

A morbid discovery:

Gunness' dentist, Dr. Ira P. Norton, said that if the teeth/dental work of the headless corpse had been located he could definitely ascertain if it was she. Thus Louis "Klondike" Schultz, a former miner, was hired to build a sluice and begin sifting the debris (as more bodies were unearthed, the sluice was used to isolate human remains on a larger scale). On May 19, 1908, a piece of bridgework was found consisting of two human canine teeth, their roots still attached, porcelain teeth and gold crown work in between. Norton identified them as work done for Gunness. As a result, Coroner Charles Mack officially concluded that the adult female body discovered in the ruins was Belle Gunness.

Asle Helgelien arrived in La Porte and told Sheriff Smutzer that he believed his brother had met with foul play at Gunness' hands. Then, Joe Maxson came forward with information that could not be ignored: He told the Sheriff that Gunness had ordered him to bring loads of dirt by wheelbarrow to a large area surrounded by a high wire fence where the hogs were fed. Maxson said that there were many deep depressions in the ground that had been covered by dirt. These filled-in holes, Gunness had told Maxson, contained rubbish. She wanted the ground made level, so he filled in the depressions.

Smutzer took a dozen men back to the farm and began to dig. On May 3, 1908, the diggers unearthed the body of Jennie Olson (vanished December 1906). Then they found the small bodies of two unidentified children. Subsequently the body of Andrew Helgelien was unearthed (his overcoat was found to be worn by Lamphere).

·         As days progressed and the gruesome work continued, one body after another was discovered in Gunness' hog pen, her victims:

• ·         Ole B. Budsberg of Iola, Wisconsin, (vanished May 1907);
• ·         Thomas Lindboe, who had left Chicago and had gone to work as a hired man for Gunness three years earlier;
• ·         Henry Gurholdt of Scandinavia, Wisconsin, who had gone to wed her a year earlier, taking $1,500 to her; a watch corresponding to one belonging to Gurholdt was found with a body;
• ·         Olaf Svenherud, from Chicago;
• ·         John Moe of Elbow Lake, Minnesota; his watch was found in Lamphere's possession;
• ·         Olaf Lindbloom, age 35 from Wisconsin.

Reports of other possible victims began to come in:

• ·         William Mingay, a coachman of New York City, who had left that city on April 1, 1904;
• ·         Herman Konitzer of Chicago who disappeared in January 1906;
• ·         Charles Edman of New Carlisle, Indiana;
• ·         George Berry of Tuscola, Illinois;
• ·         Christie Hilkven of Dovre, Barron County, Wisconsin, who sold his farm and came to La Porte in 1906;
• ·         Chares Neiburg, a 28-year-old Scandinavian immigrant who lived in Philadelphia, told friends that he was going to visit Gunness in June 1906 and never came back — he had been working for a saloon keeper and took $500 with him;
• ·         John H. McJunkin of Coraopolis (near Pittsburgh) left his wife in December 1906 after corresponding with a La Porte woman;
• ·         Olaf Jensen, a Norwegian immigrant of Carroll, Indiana, wrote his relatives in 1906 he was going to marry a wealthy widow at La Porte;
• ·         Henry Bizge of La Porte who disappeared June 1906 and his hired man named Edward Canary of Pink Lake Ill who also vanished 1906;
• ·         Bert Chase of Mishawaka, Indiana sold his butcher shop and told friends of a wealthy widow and that he was going to look her up; his brother received a telegram supposedly from Aberdeen, South Dakota claiming Bert had been killed in a train wreck; his brother investigated and found the telegram was fictitious;
• ·         Tonnes Peterson Lien of Rushford, Minnesota, is alleged to have disappeared April 2, 1907;
• ·         A gold ring marked "S.B. May 28, 1907" was found in the ruins;
• ·         A hired man named George Bradley of Tuscola, Illinois, is alleged to have gone to La Porte to meet a widow and three children in October 1907;
• ·         T.J. Tiefland of Minneapolis is alleged to have come to see Gunness in 1907;
• ·         Frank Riedinger a farmer of Waukesha, Wisconsin, came to Indiana in 1907 to marry and never returned;
• ·         Emil Tell, a Swede from Kansas City, Missouri, is alleged to have gone in 1907 to La Porte;
• ·         Lee Porter of Bartonville, Oklahoma separated from his wife and told his brother he was going to marry a wealthy widow at La Porte;
• ·         John E. Hunter left Duquesne, Pennsylvania, on November 25, 1907 after telling his daughters he was going to marry a wealthy widow in Northern Indiana.
• ·         Two other Pennsylvanians — George Williams of Wapawallopen and Ludwig Stoll of Mount Yeager — also left their homes to marry in the West.
• ·         Abraham Phillips, a railway man of Burlington, West Virginia, left in the winter of 1907 to go to Northern Indiana and marry a rich widow — a railway watch was found in the debris of the house.
• ·         Benjamin Carling of Chicago, Illinois, was last seen by his wife in 1907 after telling her that he was going to La Porte to secure an investment with a rich widow; he had with him $1,000 from an insurance company and borrowed money from several investors as well; in June 1908 his widow was able to identify his remains from La Porte's Pauper's cemetery by the contour of his skull and three missing teeth;
• ·         Aug. Gunderson of Green Lake, Wisconsin;
• ·         Ole Oleson of Battle Creek, Michigan;
• ·         Lindner Nikkelsen of Huron, South Dakota;
• ·         Andrew Anderson of Lawrence, Kansas;
• ·         Johann Sorensen of St. Joseph, Missouri;

·         A possible victim was a man named Hinkley;

Reported unnamed victims were:

• ·         a daughter of Mrs. H. Whitzer of Toledo, Ohio, who had attended Indiana University near La Porte in 1902;
• ·         an unknown man and woman are alleged to have disappeared in September 1906, the same night Jennie Olson went missing. Gunness claimed they were a Los Angeles "professor" and his wife who had taken Jennie to California;
• ·         a brother of Miss Jennie Graham of Waukesha, Wisconsin, who had left her to marry a rich widow in La Porte but vanished;
• ·         a hired man from Ohio age 50 name unknown is alleged to have disappeared and Gunness became the "heir" to his horse and buggy;
• ·         an unnamed man from Montana told people at a resort he was going to sell Gunness his horse and buggy, which were found with several other horses and buggies at the farm.

Most of the remains found on the property could not be identified. Because of the crude recovery methods, the exact number of individuals unearthed on the Gunness farm is unknown, but is believed to be approximately twelve. On May 19, 1908 remains of approximately seven unknown victims were buried in two coffins in unmarked graves in the pauper's section of LaPorte's Pine Lake Cemetery. Andrew Helgelien and Jennie Olson are buried in La Porte's Patton Cemetery, near Peter Gunness.

The trial of Ray Lamphere:

Ray Lamphere was arrested on May 22, 1908 and tried for murder and arson. He denied the charges of arson and murder that were filed against him. His defense hinged on the assertion that the body was not Gunness'.

Lamphere's lawyer, Wirt Worden, developed evidence that contradicted Norton's identification of the teeth and bridgework. A local jeweler testified that though the gold in the bridgework had emerged from the fire almost undamaged, the fierce heat of the conflagration had melted the gold plating on several watches and items of gold jewelry. Local doctors replicated the conditions of the fire by attaching a similar piece of dental bridgework to a human jawbone and placing it in a blacksmith’s forge. The real teeth crumbled and disintegrated; the porcelain teeth came out pocked and pitted, with the gold parts rather melted (both the artificial elements were damaged to a greater degree than those in the bridgework offered as evidence of Gunness' identity). The hired hand Joe Maxson and another man also testified that they’d seen "Klondike" Schultz take the bridgework out of his pocket and plant it just before it was "discovered". Lamphere was found guilty of arson, but acquitted of murder. On November 26, 1908, he was sentenced to 20 years in the State Prison (in Michigan City). He died of tuberculosis on December 30, 1909.

On January 14, 1910, the Rev. E. A. Schell came forward with a confession that Lamphere was said to have made to him while the clergyman was comforting the dying man. In it, Lamphere revealed Gunness' crimes and swore that she was still alive. Lamphere had stated to the Reverend Schell and to a fellow convict, Harry Meyers, shortly before his death, that he had not murdered anyone, but that he had helped Gunness bury many of her victims. When a victim arrived, she made him comfortable, charming him and cooking a large meal. She then drugged his coffee and when the man was in a stupor, she split his head with a meat chopper. Sometimes she would simply wait for the suitor to go to bed and then enter the bedroom by candlelight and chloroform her sleeping victim. A powerful woman, Gunness would then carry the body to the basement, place it on a table, and dissect it. She then bundled the remains and buried these in the hog pen and the grounds about the house. Belle had become an expert at dissection, thanks to instruction she had received from her second husband, the butcher Peter Gunness. To save time, she sometimes poisoned her victims' coffee with strychnine. She also varied her disposal methods, sometimes dumping the corpse into the hog-scalding vat and covering the remains with quicklime. Lamphere even stated that if Belle was overly tired after murdering one of her victims, she merely chopped up the remains and, in the middle of the night, stepped into her hog pen and fed the remains to the hogs.

The handyman also cleared up the mysterious question of the headless female corpse found in the smoking ruins of Gunness' home. Gunness had lured this woman from Chicago on the pretense of hiring her as a housekeeper only days before she decided to make her permanent escape from La Porte. Gunness, according to Lamphere, had drugged the woman, then bashed in her head and decapitated the body, taking the head, which had weights tied to it, to a swamp where she threw it into deep water. Then she chloroformed her children, smothered them to death, and dragged their small bodies, along with the headless corpse, to the basement.

She dressed the female corpse in her old clothing, and removed her false teeth, placing these beside the headless corpse to assure it being identified as Belle Gunness. She then torched the house and fled. Lamphere had helped her, he admitted, but she had not left by the road where he waited for her after the fire had been set. She had betrayed her one-time partner in crime in the end by cutting across open fields and then disappearing into the woods. Some accounts suggest that Lamphere admitted that he took her to Stillwell (a town about nine miles from La Porte) and saw her off on a train to Chicago.

Lamphere said that Gunness was a rich woman, that she had murdered 42 men by his count, perhaps more, and had taken amounts from them ranging from $1,000 to $32,000. She had allegedly accumulated more than $250,000 through her murder schemes over the years—a huge fortune for those days (about $6.3 million in 2008 dollars). She had a small amount remaining in one of her savings accounts, but local banks later admitted that she had indeed withdrawn most of her funds shortly before the fire. The fact that Gunness withdrew most of her money suggested that she was planning to evade the law.

The aftermath and Belle's fate:

Gunness was, for several decades, allegedly seen or sighted in cities and towns throughout the United States. Friends, acquaintances, and amateur detectives apparently spotted her on the streets of Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles. As late as 1931, Gunness was reported alive and living in a Mississippi town, where she supposedly owned a great deal of property and lived the life of a doyenne. Smutzer, for more than 20 years, received an average of two reports a month. She became part of American criminal folklore, a female Bluebeard.

The bodies of Gunness' three children were found in the home's wreckage, but the headless adult female corpse found with them was never positively identified. Gunness' true fate is unknown; La Porte residents were divided between believing that she was killed by Lamphere and that she had faked her own death. In 1931, a woman known as "Esther Carlson" was arrested in Los Angeles for poisoning August Lindstrom for money. Two people who had known Gunness claimed to recognize her from photographs, but the identification was never proved. Carlson died while awaiting trial.

Burial, exhumation and DNA analysis:

The body believed to be that of Belle Gunness was buried next to her first husband at Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois.

On November 5, 2007, with the permission of descendants of Belle's sister, the headless body was exhumed from Gunness' grave in Forest Home Cemetery by a team of forensic anthropologists and graduate students from the University of Indianapolis in an effort to learn her true identity. It was initially hoped that a sealed envelope flap on a letter found at the victim's farm would contain enough DNA to be compared to that of the body. Unfortunately, there was not enough DNA there, so efforts continue to find a reliable source for comparison purposes, including the disinterment of additional bodies and contact with known living relatives.

As Always, stay safe  !

-bird

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The Reading Baby Farmer Amelia Elizabeth Dyer, (1839 – 1896)

Amelia Elizabeth Dyer née Hobley (1838 – 10 June 1896) was the most prolific baby farm murderer of Victorian England. She was tried and hanged for one murder, but there is little doubt she was responsible for many more similar deaths—possibly 400 or more—over a period of perhaps twenty years.

She Adopted ‘unwanted’ Children ,  illegitimate infants for large lump-sum payments

Female Serial killer; She is the most prolific baby farm murderer of Victorian England

Number of her victims: 6 - 100 +  Her Method  - Strangulation

From: 1880 – 1896, In Reading, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom  

She was arrested: April 4, 1896, And Executed by Hanging at Newgate Prison on June 10, 1896.

 Amelia Dyer was a 'baby farmer'. Someone who, for a fee, would look after children, usually illegitimate, until a home could be found for them. Born in January 3^rd, 1829 and raised in Bristol to respectable parents and trained as a nurse before deciding that 'adopting' illegitimate infants was a more lucrative career. However, in 1879 she was sentenced to six months' hard labor after being found guilty on a charge of neglect. A doctor had become suspicious of the number of infants who had died while in Mrs. Dyer's care and had reported the matter to the authorities. On her release she spent several periods in mental institutions before resuming her child-care activities. Then in 1895 she moved to Kensington Road, Reading and began advertising. It was not long before small bodies were being fished out of the Thames. One of the bodies recovered had a tape around its neck and was wrapped in a parcel. The paper enclosing the corpse had an address on it and this was traced to Mrs. Dyer. The tiny corpse was identified as Helena Fry.

Dyer was eventually arrested on 4th April 1896. By May, seventeen tiny bodies had been recovered from the Thames, all had the tape around their necks and all were parceled. Three of the bodies were identified as four-month-old Doris Marmon, thirteen-month-old Harry Simmonds and the daughter of Elizabeth Goulding. The others were to remain unidentified. She soon confessed, saying "You'll know all mine by the tape around their necks." While in Reading police station she made two attempts to commit suicide.

She came to trial at the Old Bailey in May 1896 charged with just the murder of Doris Marmon, to which she pleaded guilty. The defense tried to prove insanity but failed, despite her dubious mental history. The jury took just five minutes to find Dyer guilty and she was sentenced to death. James Billington hanged her at Newgate on 10th June 1896. Police suspected that at least 65 other children had disappeared in a similar manner in the few months before her arrest.

  

Her background:

Unlike many of her generation, Amelia Dyer was not the product of grinding poverty. She was born the youngest of 5 (with 3 brothers, Thomas, James and William, and a sister, Ann) in the small village of Pyle Marsh, just east of Bristol (now part of Bristol's urban sprawl known as Pile Marsh), the daughter of a master shoemaker, Samuel Hobley, and Sarah Hobley née Weymouth. She learned to read and write and developed a love of literature and poetry. However, her somewhat privileged childhood was marred by the mental illness of her mother, caused by typhus. Amelia witnessed her mother's violent fits and was obliged to care for her until she died raving in 1848. Researchers would later comment on the effect this had on Amelia, and also what it would teach Amelia about the signs exhibited by those who appear to lose their mind through illness.  Just after her mother's death Amelia lived with an aunt in Bristol for a while, before serving an apprenticeship with a corset maker. Her father died in 1859, her eldest brother Thomas inheriting the family shoe business. In 1861, at the age of 24, Amelia became permanently estranged from at least one of her brothers, James, and moved into lodgings in Trinity Street, Bristol. There she married George Thomas. George was 59 and they both lied about their ages on the marriage certificate to reduce the age gap. George deducted 11 years from his age and Amelia added 6 years to her age—many sources later reported this age as fact, causing much confusion.

A Nursing Education:

For a couple of years, after marrying George Thomas, she trained as a nurse, a somewhat grueling job in Victorian times, but it was seen as a respectable occupation, and it enabled her to acquire useful skills. From contact with a midwife, Ellen Dane, she learnt of an easier way to earn a living—using her own home to provide lodgings for young women who had conceived illegitimately and then farming off the babies for adoption or allowing them to die of neglect and malnutrition (Ellen Dane was forced to decamp to the USA, shortly after meeting Amelia, to escape the attention of the authorities).  Unmarried mothers in Victorian England often struggled to gain an income, since the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act had removed any financial obligation from the fathers of illegitimate children, whilst bringing up their children in a society where single parenthood and illegitimacy were stigmatized. This led to the practice of baby farming in which individuals acted as adoption or fostering agents, in return for regular payments or a single, up-front fee from the babies’ mothers. Many businesses were set up to take in these young women and care for them until they gave birth. The mothers subsequently left their unwanted babies to be looked after as "nurse children".

The predicament of the parents involved was often exploited for financial gain: if a baby had well-off parents who were simply anxious to keep the birth secret, the single fee might be as much as £80. £50 might be negotiated if the father of the child wanted to hush up his involvement. However, it was more common for these expectant young women, whose "immorality" even precluded acceptance, at that time, into workhouses, to be impoverished. Such women would be charged about £5.  Unscrupulous careers resorted to starving the farmed-out babies, to save money and even to hasten death. Noisy or demanding babies could be sedated with easily-available alcohol and/or opiates. Godfrey's Cordial—known colloquially as "Mother's Friend", (a syrup containing opium)—was a popular choice, but there were several other similar preparations. Many children died as a result of such dubious practices: "Opium killed far more infants through starvation than directly through overdose." Dr. Greenhow, investigating for the Privy Council, noted how children "kept in a state of continued narcotics will be thereby disinclined for food, and be but imperfectly nourished." Death from severe malnutrition would result, but the coroner was likely to record the death as "'debility from birth,' or 'lack of breast milk,' or simply 'starvation.'" Mothers who chose to reclaim or simply check on the welfare of their children could often encounter difficulties, but some would simply be too frightened or ashamed to tell the police about any suspected wrongdoing. Even the authorities often had problems tracing any children that were reported missing.

This was the world opened up to her by the now-departed Ellen Danes. Amelia had had to leave nursing with the birth of a daughter, Ellen Thomas. In 1869 the elderly George Thomas died and Amelia needed an income.

The Murders:

Amelia was apparently keen to make money from baby farming, and alongside taking in expectant women, she would advertise to nurse and adopt a baby, in return for a substantial one-off payment and adequate clothing for the child. In her advertisements and meetings with clients, she assured them that she was respectable, married, and that she would provide a safe and loving home for the child. At some point in her baby farming career, Amelia was prepared to forego the expense and inconvenience of letting the children die through neglect and starvation; soon after the receipt of each child, she murdered them, thus allowing her to pocket most or all of the entire fee.

For some time, Dyer eluded the resulting interest of police. She was eventually caught in 1879 after a doctor was suspicious about the number of child deaths he had been called to certify in Dyer's care. However, instead of being convicted of murder or manslaughter, she was sentenced to six months' hard labor for neglect. The experience allegedly almost destroyed her mentally, though others have expressed incredulity at the leniency of the sentence when compared to those handed out for lesser crimes at that time. Upon release, she attempted to resume her nursing career. She had spells in mental hospitals due to her alleged mental instability and suicidal tendencies; these always coincided with times when it was convenient for her to "disappear". Being a former asylum nurse Amelia knew how to behave to ensure a relatively comfortable existence as an asylum inmate. Dyer appears to have begun abusing alcohol and opium-based products early in her killing career; her mental instability could have been related to her substance abuse. In 1890, Dyer cared for the illegitimate baby of a governess. When she returned to visit the child, the governess was immediately suspicious and stripped the baby to see if a birthmark was present on one of its hips. It wasn't, and prolonged suspicions by the authorities led to Dyer having, or feigning, a breakdown. Dyer at one point drank two bottles of laudanum in a serious suicide attempt, but her long-term abuse had built up her tolerance to opium products, so she survived. Inevitably, she returned to baby farming, and murder. Dyer realized the folly of involving doctors to issue death certificates and began disposing of the bodies herself. The precarious nature and extent of her activities again prompted undesirable attention; she was alert to the attentions of police—and of parents seeking to reclaim their children. She and her family frequently relocated to different towns and cities to escape suspicion, regain anonymity—and to acquire new business. Over the years, Dyer used a succession of aliases.

In 1893, Dyer was discharged from her final committal at Wells mental asylum. Unlike previous "breakdowns" this had been a most disagreeable experience and she never entered another asylum. Two years later, Dyer moved to Caversham, Berkshire, accompanied by an unsuspecting associate, Jane "Granny" Smith, whom Amelia had recruited from a brief spell in a workhouse and Amelia's daughter and son-in-law, Mary Ann (known as Polly) and Arthur Palmer. This was followed by a move to Kensington Road, Reading, Berkshire later the same year. Smith was persuaded by Amelia to be referred to as 'mother' in front of innocent women handing over their children. This was an effort to present a caring mother-daughter image.

A Case study - the murder of Doris Marmon:

In January 1896, Evelina Marmon, a popular 25-year-old barmaid, gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Doris, in a boarding house in Cheltenham. She quickly sought offers of adoption, and placed an advertisement in the "Miscellaneous" section of the Bristol Times & Mirror newspaper. It simply read: "Wanted, respectable woman to take young child." Marmon intended to go back to work and hoped to eventually reclaim her child. Coincidentally, next to her own, was an advertisement reading: "Married couple with no family would adopt healthy child, nice country home. Terms, £10". Marmon responded, to a "Mrs. Harding", and a few days later she received a reply from Dyer. From Oxford Road in Reading, "Mrs. Harding" wrote that "I should be glad to have a dear little baby girl, one I could bring up and call my own." She continued: “We are plain, homely people, in fairly good circumstances. I don't want a child for money's sake, but for company and home comfort. ... Myself and my husband are dearly fond of children. I have no child of my own. A child with me will have a good home and a mother's love.” Evelina Marmon wanted to pay a more affordable, weekly fee for the care of her daughter, but "Mrs. Harding" insisted on being given the one-off payment in advance. Marmon was in desperate straits, so she reluctantly agreed to pay the £10, and a week later "Mrs. Harding" arrived in Cheltenham.

Marmon was apparently surprised by Dyer's advanced age and stocky appearance, but Dyer seemed affectionate towards Doris. Evelina handed over her daughter, a cardboard box of clothes and the £10. Still distressed at having to give up care for her daughter, Evelina accompanied Dyer to Cheltenham station, and then on to Gloucester. She returned to her lodgings "a broken woman". A few days later, she received a letter from "Mrs. Harding" saying all was well; Marmon wrote back, but received no reply. Dyer did not travel to Reading, as she had told Marmon. She went instead to 76 Mayo Road, Willesden, London where her 23-year-old daughter Polly was staying. There, Dyer quickly found some white edging tape used in dressmaking, wound it twice around the baby's neck and tied a knot. Death would not have been immediate. (Amelia later said "I used to like to watch them with the tape around their neck, but it was soon all over with them") Both women allegedly helped to wrap the body in a napkin. They kept some of the clothes Marmon had packed; the rest was destined for the pawnbroker. Dyer paid the rent to the unwitting landlady, and gave her a pair of child's boots as a present for her little girl. The following day, Wednesday 1 April 1896, another child, named Harry Simmons, was taken to Mayo Road. However, with no spare white edging tape available, the length around Doris' corpse was removed and used to strangle the 13 month-old boy.

On April 2, both bodies were stacked into a carpet bag, along with bricks for added weight. Dyer then headed for Reading. At a secluded spot she knew well near a weir at Caversham Lock, she forced the carpet bag through railings into the River Thames.

Amelia's downfall

The gruesome discovery of very small corpses:

Unknown to Dyer, on 30 March 1896, a package was retrieved from the Thames at Reading by a bargeman. It contained the body of a baby girl, later identified as Helena Fry. In the small detective force available to Reading Borough Police headed by Chief Constable George Tewsley, a Detective Constable Anderson made a crucial breakthrough. As well as finding a label from Temple Meads station, Bristol, he used microscopic analysis of the wrapping paper, and deciphered a faintly-legible name—Mrs. Thomas—and an address. This evidence was enough to lead police to Dyer, but they still had no strong evidence to connect her directly with a serious crime. Additional evidence they gleaned from witnesses, and information obtained from Bristol police, only served to increase their concerns, and D.C. Anderson, with Sgt. James, placed Dyer's home under surveillance. Subsequent intelligence suggested that Dyer would abscond if she became at all suspicious. The officers decided to use a young woman as a decoy, hoping she would be able to secure a meeting with Dyer to discuss her services. This may have been designed to help the detectives to positively link Dyer to her business activities, or it may have simply given them a reliable opportunity to arrest her.

It transpired that Dyer was expecting her new client (the decoy) to call, but instead she found detectives waiting on her doorstep. On April 3 (Good Friday), police raided her home. They were apparently struck by the stench of human decomposition, although no human remains were found. There was however, plenty of other related evidence, including white edging tape, telegrams regarding adoption arrangements, pawn tickets for children's clothing, receipts for advertisements and letters from mothers inquiring about the well-being of their children. The police calculated that in the previous few months alone, at least twenty children had been placed in the care of a "Mrs. Thomas", now revealed to be Amelia Dyer. It also appeared that she was about to move home again, this time to Somerset. This rate of murder has led to some estimates that Mrs. Dyer may, over the course of decades, have killed over 400 babies and children, making her one of the most prolific murderers ever, as well as the most prolific murderess ever.

Helena Fry, the baby removed from the River Thames on March 30, had been handed over to Dyer at Temple Meads station on March 5. That same evening, she arrived home carrying only a brown paper parcel. She hid the package in the house but, after three weeks, the odor of decomposition prompted her to dump the dead baby in the river. As it was not weighted adequately, it had been easily spotted.  Amelia Dyer was arrested on April 4 and charged with murder. Her son-in-law Arthur Palmer was charged as an accessory. During April, the Thames was dragged and six more bodies were discovered, including Doris Marmon and Harry Simmons—Dyer's last victims. Each baby had been strangled with white tape, which as she later told the police "was how you could tell it was one of mine". Eleven days after handing her daughter to Dyer, Evelina Marmon, whose name had emerged in items kept by Dyer, identified her daughter's remains.

The inquest and trial:

At the inquest into the deaths in early May, no evidence was found that Mary Ann or Arthur Palmer had acted as Dyer’s accomplices. Arthur Palmer was discharged as the result of a confession written by Amelia Dyer. In Reading gaol she wrote (with her own spelling and punctuation preserved):

    Sir will you kindly grant me the favor of presenting this to the magistrates on Saturday the 18th instant I have made this statement out, for I may not have the opportunity then I must relieve my mind I do know and I feel my days are numbered on this earth but I do feel it is an awful thing drawing innocent people into trouble I do know I shall have to answer before my Maker in Heaven for the awful crimes I have committed but as God Almighty is my judge in Heaven a on Hearth neither my daughter Mary Ann Palmer nor her husband Alfred Ernest Palmer I do most solemnly declare neither of them had anything at all to do with it, they never knew I contemplated doing such a wicked thing until it was too late I am speaking the truth and nothing but the truth as I hope to be forgiven, I myself and I alone must stand before my Maker in Heaven to give an answer for it all witness my hand Amelia Dyer.      —April 16, 1896

On 22 May 1896, Amelia Dyer appeared at the Old Bailey and pleaded guilty to one murder, that of Doris Marmon. Her family and associates testified at her trial that they had been growing suspicious and uneasy about her activities, and it emerged that Dyer had narrowly escaped discovery on several occasions. Evidence from a man who had seen and spoken to Dyer when she had disposed of the two bodies at Caversham Lock also proved significant. Her daughter had given graphic evidence that ensured Amelia Dyer's conviction.  The only defense Dyer offered was insanity: she had been twice committed to asylums in Bristol. However, the prosecution argued successfully that her exhibitions of mental instability had been a ploy to avoid suspicion; both committals were said to have coincided with times when Dyer was concerned her crimes might have been exposed. It took the jury only four and a half minutes to find her guilty. In her 3 weeks in the condemned cell, she filled five exercise books with her "last true and only confession". Visited the night before her execution by the chaplain and asked if she had anything to confess, she offered him her exercise books, saying, "isn't this enough?" Curiously she was subpoenaed to appear as a witness in Polly's trial for murder, set for a week after her own execution date. However it was ruled that Amelia was already legally dead once sentenced and that therefore her evidence would be inadmissible. Thus her execution was not delayed. On the eve of her execution Amelia heard that the charges against Polly had been dropped. She was hanged by James Billington at Newgate Prison on Wednesday, 10 June 1896. Asked on the scaffold if she had anything to say, she said "I have nothing to say", just before being dropped at 9am precisely.

The later developments:

It is uncertain how many more children Amelia Dyer murdered. However, inquiries from mothers, evidence of other witnesses, and material found in Dyer’s homes, including letters and many babies' clothes, pointed to many more.

The Dyer case caused a scandal. She became known as the "Ogress of Reading", and she inspired a popular ballad:

    The old baby farmer, the wretched Miss Dyer

    At the Old Bailey her wages is paid.

    In times long ago, we'd 'a' made a big fy-er

    And roasted so nicely that wicked old jade.

Subsequently, adoption laws were made stricter, giving local authorities the power to police baby farms in the hope of stamping out abuse. Despite this and the scrutinizing of newspaper personal ads, the trafficking and abuse of infants did not stop. Two years after Dyer's execution, railway workers inspecting carriages at Newton Abbot, Devon found a parcel. Inside was a three-week-old girl, but though cold and wet, she was alive. The daughter of a widow, Jane Hill, the baby had been given to a Mrs. Stewart, for £12. She had picked up the baby at Plymouth—and apparently dumped her on the next train. It has been claimed that "Mrs. Stewart" was Polly, the daughter of Amelia Dyer.

Some of the identified victims:

    Doris Marmon, 4 months old

    Harry Simmons, 13 months old

    Helena Fry, Age unknown, 1 year old or less

And the Jack the Ripper Speculation

Because she was a murderer alive at the time of the Jack the Ripper killings, some have suggested that Amelia Dyer was Jack the Ripper, who killed the prostitutes through botched abortions. This suggestion was put forward by author William Stewart, although he preferred Mary Pearcey as his chosen suspect. There is, however, no evidence to connect Dyer to the Jack the Ripper murders.

  

“The Official Record of Amelia Dyer:”  (published in circa. 1939)

Mrs. Dyer was 56 years old when she moved from Bristol to Caversham in Reading in 1895 and began advertising for babies to look after. On the 30th of March of 1896, a bargeman recovered the corpse of 15-month old Helena Fry from the river Thames at Reading. Helena's body was wrapped in a brown paper parcel which had the name of a Mrs. Thomas and her address on it – Piggott’s Road Lower Caversham. Mrs. Thomas was one of Mrs. Dyer's aliases. It took the police some time to trace Mrs. Dyer as she had already moved on, changing her address quite frequently and also using various aliases. In the meantime, a Cheltenham barmaid, 23 year old Evelina Marmon, had answered a newspaper advert from a "Mrs. Harding" seeking a child for adoption. She met "Mrs. Harding" and paid her a £10 fee to take her four month old baby daughter Doris on the 31st of March 1896. She felt comfortable with the arrangement as "Mrs. Harding" appeared to be a respectable and motherly person. The following day Mrs. Dyer “adopted” another child, Harry Simmons. The police finally located Mrs. Dyer, who they kept under surveillance for several days before mounting a “sting” operation using a young woman to pose as a potential customer. She was arrested on April the 4th, 1896 when she opened the door to the person she thought would be this customer only to find two policemen standing there.

The two tiny bodies of Doris and Harry were found in the Thames on April the 10th, 1896, both wrapped in a carpet bag and both white tapes round their necks. In all, the corpses of seven babies, all of whom had been strangled, were recovered from the Thames and each one had the same white tape around their neck. She soon confessed saying, "You’ll know all mine by the tape around their necks." She made two attempts to commit suicide in Reading police station. She came to trial before Mr. Justice Hawkins at the Old Bailey on the 21st and 22nd of May 1896 charged with Doris' murder in the first instance, so that if she was acquitted, she could be tried for another. This was standard practice until recently in cases of multiple murder. Miss Marmon identified Mrs. Dyer  in court as "Mrs. Harding". The defense tried to prove insanity but failed to convince the jury who took just 5 minutes to find her guilty. Although there was strong evidence of her dubious sanity, her crimes were also appalling and the jury seemed to give far more weight to that aspect. Mr. Justice Hawkins sentenced her to death. During her three weeks in the condemned cell, she filled five exercise books with her "last true and only confession." In a compassionate move the authorities removed her from Newgate for a few hours so that she would not have to hear the hanging of Milsom, Fowler and Seaman the day before her own execution. The chaplain visited her on the evening of the 9th and asked her if she had anything to confess - she offered him her exercise books saying "isn't this enough?"

She was hanged the following morning (10th of June 1896) by James Billington, becoming at 57, the oldest woman to be executed since 1843. She was given a drop of five feet as she weighed some 15 stones.  Her ghost was said to haunt Newgate prison. No one will ever know the exact number of her victims but at the time of her arrest, she had been carrying on her trade for 15 to 20 years.  She may have murdered as many as 400 babies in all.

Book:  ‘The Untold Story of England’s Baby Killer’ (1965)

Amelia Elizabeth Dyer was perhaps the best known and most prolific murderous baby farmer. She was convicted of the murder of 4 month old Doris Marmon who had been entrusted to her care, having received £10 to look after her. Doris' tiny body was found in the Thames on April the 10th 1896, together with that of one year old Harry Simmons, both wrapped in a carpet bag and both with her trade mark white tapes round their necks. The Crown decided to proceed only with Doris' murder in the first instance, so that if Mrs. Dyer was acquitted they would be able to try her for another. This was standard practice until recently.

Mrs. Dyer who was fifty-seven years old at the time of her arrest moved to Reading in 1895 where she began advertising for babies to look after. On the 30th of March of 1895 a bargeman recovered the corpse of 15 month old Helena Fry from the river Thames at Reading. Helena's body was wrapped in a brown paper parcel which had Mrs. Dyer's address on it. It took the police some time to trace the identity of the owner of the parcel as Mrs. Dyer had moved on, changing her address quite frequently and also using various aliases. They eventually caught up with her and she was arrested on April the 4th 1896. The corpses of seven babies, all of whom had been strangled had been recovered from the Thames, all had the same white tape around their necks. She soon confessed, saying "You’ll know all mine by the tape around their necks." While in Reading police station she made two attempts to commit suicide. She came to trial at the Old Bailey the 21st of May 1896, the trial lasting two days. The defense tried to prove insanity but failed to convince the jury who took just five minutes to find her guilty. Although there was strong evidence of her dubious sanity her crimes were also appalling and the jury seemed to give far more weight to that aspect. Mr. Justice Hawkins sentenced her to death and while in the condemned cell she filled five exercise books with her "last true and only confession." She decided not to appeal and so her execution was set for three weeks after sentence. The chaplain visited her the night before her execution and asked her if she had anything to confess - she offered him her exercise books saying "isn't this enough?"

She was hanged the following morning (10th June 1896) by James Billington at Newgate, becoming the oldest woman to be executed since 1843. No-one will ever know the exact number of her victims, but at the time of her arrest she had been carrying on her trade for fifteen to twenty years.

  

 DYER, Amelia Elizabeth (England)

[Quoting: Amazing True Stories of Female Executions by Geoffrey Abbott]

That a man should kill a child is appalling; that a woman should kill a child is unthinkable; but a woman who killed eight children and perhaps many more . . .

Amelia Dyer was known as the Reading Baby-farmer; having once been a member of the Salvation Army, she was a figure of trust to those parents or guardians who, over the years, accepted her offer to adopt unwanted children, and were more than happy to pay her the regular boarding fees for their upkeep. But their trust was badly shaken when in 1885 a boatman on the Thames noticed something unusual floating in the water. Rescuing it, he was shocked to find that, wrapped in a brown paper parcel, was a dead baby, with a tape tied tightly round its neck. The parcel bore an address: Mrs. Thomas, Piggott’s Road, Lower Caversham. The police immediately went to the address, only to discover that their quarry had moved away and had, moreover, changed her name. Worse was to follow, for within the next few days two more bodies were found floating in the river, each in a separate parcel, each having been strangled by the tape around its throat.

In the widespread hunt that ensued, Mrs. Dyer, alias Thomas, alias Harding, alias Stanfield, was found, and when arrested on a charge of murdering a little girl named Fry, admitted her guilt, adding, ‘You’ll know all mine by the tapes around their necks.’  That statement was tragically borne out when no fewer than a further four small corpses were fished out of the Thames, and it was suspected that there could have been many more similarly strangled over the years during which she had been a baby farmer, four more children having recently disappeared.

It would appear that she would place an advertisement in local papers, worded as follows:

I should be glad to have a dear little baby girl, one I could bring up and call my own. First I must tell you we are plain, homely people, in fairly good circumstances. We live in our own house. I have a good and comfortable home. We are out in the country and sometimes I am alone a good deal. I do not want a child for money’s sake but for company and home comfort. Myself and my husband are dearly fond of children. I have no child of my own. A child with me will have a good home and a mother’s love and care. We belong to the Church of England. Although I want to bring the child up as my own, I should not mind the mother or any other person coming to see the child at any time. It would be a satisfaction to see and know the child was getting on all right. I only hope we can come to terms.

The latter offer of access was impossible, of course, Amelia Dyer repeatedly changing her name and address. Women who responded to the advertisement usually handed over a parcel of clothes, ten pounds in cash, a considerable sum in those days, and the baby – which she never saw again.

When her house was searched by the police, no less than three hundredweight (336 lb.) of children’s clothes were found, together with a large number of pawn tickets for baby clothes.

In May 1896 Amelia appeared in court charged with murdering a four-month-old baby girl named Doris Marmon and a boy, Harry Simmons. Her plea, that she was insane, was not accepted, the jury taking only five minutes to find her guilty, and she was sentenced to death. Confident of a reprieve, doubtless because of her age – she was 57 – she spent her time in the condemned cell praying and writing poems, one of which survives:

     By nature, Lord, I know with grief,

     I am a poor fallen leaf

     Shriveled and dry, near unto death

     Driven with sin, as with a breath.

     But if by Grace I am made new,

     Washed in the blood of Jesus, too,

     Like to a lily, I shall stand

     Spotless and pure at His right hand.

     And not content with the hypocritical tone of the verse, she had the appalling gall to sign it ‘Mother’.

In accordance with the regulations, which stipulated that executions should take place at 8 a.m. on the first day after the intervention of three Sundays from the day on which the sentence was passed – in this case 10 June 1896 – Amelia herself was taken into care, James Billington, the public executioner, a muscular ex-coal miner, having temporarily adopted her. He escorted her up the steps of the scaffold behind the high walls of Newgate Prison and there guided her on to the trapdoors, where he hooded her. The prison bell had already been tolling for the past fifteen minutes and would continue to do so for the same length of time after the execution had taken place. Crowds had gathered outside, waiting to see the regulatory black flag which would be raised on the prison’s flagpole at the moment the trapdoors opened, and also, within the next few minutes, to read the Certificate of Death which had to be displayed near the principal entrance to the prison. They did not have long to wait, for Billington, never one to linger, and no doubt recalling the manner in which Amelia Dyer had strangled her helpless charges, positioned his version of a tape, the noose, around her neck and swiftly operated the drop – sending the cold-blooded killer plummeting into the depths of the pit.

Whether Amelia’s spirit departed with her, though, is another matter, it being rumored that her ghost haunted the chief warder’s office for some years following her execution.

  

 This is a new series that I am beginning concerning the serial killer, but more specifically the female serial killer, the news is rife with the male counterpart who has killed x amount of people, but rarely does it come on the news of a female serial killer, and the people portrayed in this new series are extremely foul.  There is always two sides of a coin, the news media wants the public to believe that the most dominate killer let loose is a man, and refuse to report on any woman who decides to follow this path of human destruction, and this is so utterly wrong.  Once a killer, always a killer; man or woman, if an individual kills another for pleasure, pain, of money, and does it repeatedly, (the FBI says 5 or more), they are termed as a serial killer.  That being said, this series highlights the foul or the most foulest woman killers that I could find.

For one to become adept at no becoming a victim, then you must have the information by which you can make decisions to avoid people such as this.

As always, stay safe.

bird

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Crimes against humanity in North Korea's hidden gulags

Crimes against humanity in North Korea's hidden gulags
North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program is a secondary issue. So is its effort to create intercontinental -range missiles, which flopped spectacularly last week.  The North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program is a secondary issue. So is its effort to create intercontinental-range missiles, which flopped spectacularly last week. The problem with North Korea is North Korea itself – the twisted, pathological nature of its dictatorship, which is what makes its possession of nuclear arms so dangerous. A newly released report, “The Hidden Gulag,” has given the world an unprecedented glimpse of the depravity at the core of the regime. It’s been common knowledge for many years – though denied by the dictatorship – that North Korea runs a system of slave camps modeled on Josef Stalin’s gulags.

 “The Hidden Gulag,” published by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, documents that system in astounding and damning detail. The report gleans a surprising amount of evidence – including satellite imagery – of what’s happening inside the obsessively secretive nation.

It relies on extensive interviews with survivors of the camps who escaped and miraculously found their way to asylum in South Korea and elsewhere. Totalitarian governments have routinely subjected their victims to unspeakable misery; that’s hardly news. Stalin, Adolf Hitler and their imitators almost inured the world to arbitrary arrests, mass enslavement, starvation, torture and systematic murder. Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have suffered the same fates for such crimes as having the wrong ideas or knowing too much about South Korea.

North Korea has enlarged even Stalin’s expansive definition of political crimes. One such crime is being the parent or child of a supposed wrongdoer; the first of the country’s dynasty, Kim Il-Sung, had a policy of purging “class enemies for three generations.” Another crime is being a pregnant woman. Perhaps the most shocking passages in “The Hidden Gulag” are descriptions of what happens to women who flee to China, are lured into sexual slavery by human traffickers, then caught by Chinese police and forced back to North Korea. If they return pregnant, some are forced to abort. If the pregnancy is too advanced, the infants may be beaten to death by guards or literally buried alive. There are accounts of newborns being tossed into buckets or bins like garbage and left to die as more are tossed on top of them.

By comparison, Iran and other oppressive governments look positively humane. These crimes against humanity can be ended in only one place: Beijing. The Chinese government stands in the way of any international sanctions that might force change in North Korea. China props up the North Korean regime politically, economically and diplomatically. The Chinese communist party’s complicity in the horrors across the border is a reminder that it remains the organization founded by Mao Zedong, another Stalinist protégé who also presided over murder and slavery on a monumental scale.

In reality, North Korea has been a scourge on human rights that are magnitudes worse than Iran or Iraq (the other two in the "Axis of Evil). There are a couple of differences:

North Korea has had WMD for decades - with a proven nuclear weapons program never found in Iraq and still being developed in Iran. North Korea is a regional threat to South Korea and Japan - rather than to Israel and the pipelines for OIL. We had our chance once before to save millions of lives (from concentration camps and starvation) - numbers that over the last 60 years would overshadow the holocaust - when MacArthur wanted to blow up the bridges over the Yalu River and hold our nuclear arsenal over the heads of China and USSR. Everything else we have done in regards to N. Korea has been hypocrisy in terms of WMD and most certainly in terms of human rights. But even that is nothing new in regards to Korea - President Teddy Roosevelt got a Nobel Peace Prize for settling the War between Russia and Japan, which basically enslaved the Korean people under Imperial Japan for the next 35+ years. The Chinese communist party’s complicity in the horrors across the border is a reminder that it remains the organization founded by Mao Zedong, another Stalinist protege who also presided over murder and slavery on a monumental scale.

Torture, kidnapping and gulags: North Korea’s crimes against humanity.
A North Korean man stands on the rooftop near a North Korean flag as fighter jets fly past during a mass military parade in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square to celebrate 100 years since the birth of North Korean founder, Kim Il Sung on Sunday, April 15, 2012.   The decision by a U.N. General Assembly committee to condemn North Korea for crimes against humanity this week is historic. It could well lead to North Korean leaders facing trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC), forcing them to confront the numerous accusations made against their isolated regime. There is still a long way to go, however. The resolution must pass the Security Council, where Russia and China - two important allies of North Korea - hold veto power. Also, the ICC itself has struggled with problems of legitimacy since it was established in 2002 to prosecute war crimes. Even so, North Korea seems worried, and after Tuesday's decision it offered a belligerent warning that it would conduct further nuclear tests. The reaction reflects a broader trend: In the past few months, the country has used crude insults and a curious charm offensive to try to deflect the U.N. criticism of its human rights offenses.

 At one point, it even released a list of the alleged U.S. human rights abuses, in a clear moment of "Whataboutism." The fear emanating from Pyongyang comes from one major factor: the sheer scale and scope of the human rights abuses it stands accused of committing. A year-long U.N. investigation released earlier this year found that they were “without any parallel in the contemporary world." The crimes were so bad that the specially formed Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea compared them to the horrors of Nazi Germany. In the light of backlash and the upcoming decision by the U.N. Security Council, it's worth taking a look back at just how extreme the accusations made against North Korea are.

The lengthy Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea identified six groups of victims against whom North Korea had committed crimes against humanity. As I will explain them below.

Inmates of political prison camps

A drawing by former prisoner Kwon Hyo Jin depicting life in a political prison camp.

North Korea denies they exist, but its political prison camps have become notorious around the world in the past few years, and accounts of the camps from survivors formed one of the key parts of the committee's report. While the country has downsized to just four sites in recent years, the committee still estimated there are between 80,000 and 120,000 people still in the camps, most of whom are never due for release. The system is modeled on the Soviet Union's infamous "Gulag" system, though the United Nations notes that "many features of the DPRK camps are even harsher than what could be found in the Gulag camps." One particularly horrible concept is “guilt by association," which has meant that generations of families could be locked up for the alleged political crimes of one person. The report noted that three generations could be locked up in some cases. Some prisoners were even born in the camps, and never saw freedom. 

One ex-prisoner told the committee:  “I was born a criminal and I would die a criminal. That was my fate … Where I lived only two kinds of people existed, the guards who had guns and the people who are inmates wearing uniforms. Inmates were born inmates, so we lived like inmates; that was our fate... Nobody taught us that way but that was all that we could see… so that’s how we lived.""

In these camps, things are especially dire. People are beaten and tortured routinely, and conditions so bad that prisoners are forced to eat rodents to survive. One former inmate told the committee how she fed her young children:

“[The] babies [had] bloated stomachs. [We] cooked snakes and mice to feed these babies and if there was a day that we were able to have a mouse, this was a special diet for us. We had to eat everything alive, every type of meat that we could find; anything that flew, that crawled on the ground. Any grass that grew in the field, we had to eat. That’s the reality of the prison camp.”"

Inmates of the ordinary prison system, in particular political prisoners among them. While the regular prison system isn't quite as bad as the political system, it's still horrific by any standard we know. The report notes that many of the inmates are imprisoned without trial or without any kind of due process. The committee notes that the conditions inside the ordinary prison system can still be so bad that people die: A former female inmate of Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 11 at Cheungson described how she was held with 40 to 50 inmates in a cell of approximately 40 square meters in the female section. People could not lie down straight and fights about space were frequent. In winter, it was extremely cold in the cell block. Inmates could only wash themselves once a month, and everyone had lice. Every month, at least two people from her cell died. Prisoners can be treated horrifically. The report details some of the sexual abuse seen at one ordinary prison:

According to a former female inmate of [Kyohwaso N. 12 prison], the guards had the prettier among the female inmates sit close to the bars, so that they could grope their breasts. The same witness also knew several women who agreed to sexual contacts with the guards to receive more than the usual starvation rations or other benefits that allowed them to survive. On one occasion, one female inmate spoke about such a sexual contact with others. The guards made her kneel outside covered from head to toe in thick layers of snow, so that she appeared like a grotesque human snowman.

Religious believers and others considered to introduce subversive influences.
The U.N. committee's report states that religious North Koreans, in particular Christians, face persecution from the state. While the North Korean state points to a number of state-sanctioned churches as proof of religious tolerance, the committee found that ordinary citizens are not allowed to practice Christianity and that it was treated as a political crime. "It has been compared to a drug, narcotics, a sin, and a tool of Western and capitalist invasion. Christian missionaries are portrayed as the product of USA capitalism and work akin to vampirism," the report notes.

Accounts from North Koreans suggest horrific punishment for those found to be practicing Christianity:  Both of Mr A’s sisters were punished severely for their religious belief and activities. One was discovered to be preaching Christianity to a friend and was caught with a Bible resulting in a 13 year sentence in an ordinary prison camp (kyohwaso). The other was caught in China. As a result of the starvation rations and horrendous living conditions, the first sister almost died in prison and only survived after Mr A paid a substantial bribe to free her after three years of confinement. The other sister was labelled a political criminal because it was discovered that she had practiced Christianity in China and had also attempted to flee to the ROK. She was sent to Yodok Camp and was never heard from again.

The report notes that there are indications of a "genocide against religious groups, specifically Christians, in particular in the 1950s and 1960s." However, the committee found that it would be impossible to research this possibility without access to North Korean archives.

Persons who try to flee the country.  The committee's report found that, in practice, most North Korean citizens are subject to a blanket travel ban. If they break this ban, they risk extreme violence and harsh punishment. Despite this, many do try to flee the country, crossing illegally over to China. The committee noted that guards at the border may operate with a "shoot to kill" policy, and that North Korea's security services have also been accused of traveling into China to abduct North Korean citizens who have made it across. Those who are caught are often made an example of to deter others who might hope to escape. The report recounts one story: Ms Kwon Young-hee spoke to the Commission about her brother who was arrested in China in 1994 for attempting to “defect” from the DPRK. He had gone to China in search of food. As an example to others against committing similar “anti-state” offences, he was tied to the back of a truck which took him to their home town, Musan.

“By the time he reached Musan, his face was covered with blood, his clothes were all torn. And when he fell, they stopped the truck and rushed him to stand up again. At the time my brother was discharged [from the army] for malnutrition, and he was diabetic. My mother tried to treat his diabetes in the hospital so he was diabetic at the time he went to China. … Even when my brother collapsed, the truck would go on and the Bowibu people, when my brother collapsed, would beat my brother up to make him stand up. Musan is a big city but they drove him around Musan city three times so that everybody could see him.”

The report also notes that repatriated citizens are often tortured and kept in inhumane conditions when they return. There have even been cases where pregnant women have been forced to undergo abortions and newborn babies were killed, the committee found.

Starving populations:
One of the reasons that people would risk their lives to leave North Korea is simple: They can't get enough food. While food shortages have gotten better since the the mass starvation of the 1990s, which may have led to the death of as many as 2.5 million people, the committee found that starvation was still a major issue in the country. The report sites data from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations that estimated that between 2011 and 2016, 38.9 percent of the population suffered from malnutrition. The report also noted is that what food there was often distributed for political reasons. The lack of food has an especially big effect on children, the report noted:

At the Seoul Public Hearing, Mr Kim Hyuk described the situation in the orphanage where he was placed by his father in 1995. He said that in 1997 “twenty four out of 75 orphans passed away from starvation… internally there was no food subsidized to the orphanages. So what we ate at the time was the remainder of the corn. We dried it and we grinned and turned it into a powder. That’s what we got, but it does not contain any nutrition and because of that, we got constipation…. There was nothing to eat in the orphanage. In 1996 and 1997, the orphanages tried to release as many children as possible because they didn’t have anything to give to the kids. So they thoughts that kids were better off begging in the streets. It would be better than starving to death sitting in the orphanage.

Persons from other countries who became victims of international abductions and enforced disappearances: One of the most incredible crimes described by the U.N. committee's report is the practice of abducting foreign nationals, a practice that has its roots in the Korean War but has extended into recent years. In 2012, then-leader Kim Jong Il admitted that his country had also abducted Japanese nationals and taken them to North Korea in the 1990s and '2000's. Kim expressed regret for the action, which served espionage and terrorism functions.

The U.N. report describes how people were taken:  Kidnappings of nationals on land in Japan mostly occurred in the countryside, near the coast. Agents approach Japan by sea, and landed onshore. Women walking alone were often targeted for the ease at which they could be overcome. The former official cited various methods used to overcome victims. These included surrounding the victims, choking them and/ or tying a bandage soaking in anesthetic over their mouths before putting them in a sack for transportion to the boat. Often, those abducted were never heard from again. The U.N. noted the case of Ms Masumoto Rumiko and Mr Ichikawa Shuichi who were abducted from Japan in 1978 and (according to North Korea) subsequently died in North Korea. Masumoto’s brother, Masumoto Teruaki, told the U.N. of his anguish about the kidnapping:

“My family was worried sick about Rumiko. Every single day we prayed that she was alive somewhere. We grieved for a long time, but after a while we stopped talking about it, because every time we did, it reopened the wounds and my mother would start crying again as if it happened yesterday. We tried to get on with our lives, but our smiles were forced. Rumiko was always in our thoughts. We lost the ability to enjoy life at all. The pain of losing a sister I loved has never gone away, so I can only imagine what torment my parents have gone through.”

A number of other nationalities have also been abducted. These people were often kept isolated and denied many freedoms. While the kidnappings appear to have slowed down in the last 15 years, the U.N. found evidence they had not stopped totally. This is just a tiny portion of the U.N. committee's full report, which came out to 372 pages and more than 200,000 words in total, and it only scratches the surface of the depths of the accusations. The North Korean government later released its own human rights report and stated that North Korean citizens enjoyed "world's most advantageous human rights system." The report dismissed the testimonies of the North Korean defectors who had spoken to the U.N. committee, labeling them  "riffraff's," "fugitives" and "terrorists."

Inside North Korea's secret gulags: Prisoners strangled to death and others so hungry they ate GRASS in 200-square mile complex for 20,000 inmates. A former guard who escaped the regime has described shocking scenes; He saw one inmate get throttled with a rubber cord and thrown into a pit; Prisoners were forced  to eat rats, snakes and even ants to stay alive; Other guards even boasted about the sadistic execution methods they used. Chilling testimony from a former guard at one of North Korea's notorious prison camps has revealed the shocking cruelties and deprivation the inmates face. The man, known only as 'Lee' to prevent reprisals against his family, was a guard at Prison camp No16, also known as Hwasong camp, where 20,000 political prisoners live. Thousands have died or disappeared after being sent to the 200-square mill hellhole. Lee watched one man get murdered by two soldiers. The prisoner was first questioned by a man at a desk and then ordered to leave through a door at the back of the room.

Brutal: Life in the totalitarian North Korean camps has been laid bare by a former guard.
Hell on Earth: Former prison guards have spoken of horrifying scenes at camps. The complex where he worked before escaping covers 200 square miles and is home to 20,000 prisoners. Behind the door was a pair of men, one of whom had a rubber cord. One wrapped it around the prisoner's neck while the other tightened it. He told The People: 'I can still see his face. I'll remember it until I die.' The prisoner's body was then thrown into a hole at the back of the room - joining many other corpses in there. Some of the prisoners were high-ranking politicians who had displeased North Korea's dictator Kim Jong Un and sent to the camps, along with their families. 'They would be stripped of their possessions and then split up. They would never see each other again.'

Menacing: The North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un should face international justice for a catalogue of appalling crimes against humanity, UN investigators have. U.N. investigators have warned North Korean security chiefs and possibly even Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un should face international justice for ordering systematic torture, starvation and mass killings It has emerged that North Korean prison guards use inmates as punchbags.  Another grisly execution method Lee heard about was prisoners being forced to dig holes in a field. They were then told to stand on the edge before being hit on the back of a head with a hammer. Guards bragged to each other about the sadistic ways they had dispatched their terrified and helpless victims. Prisoners had to walk seven miles to work in -25C conditions. Starvation was rife and the prisoners were often worked to death. Many ate grass, rats, snakes and even ants in a desperate bid to stay alive. He says he never joined in with torture or murder, but admits he didn't feel guilty because of the extensive brainwashing personnel underwent.

Horrendous: This drawing by a former North Korean prison guard of torture at a camp is describing a position called 'pigeon torture'. where 'prisoners are reportedly beaten on the chest until they vomit blood'.

 Everyday torture: One of the drawings by the guards, simply titled 'Detention center' seems to depict a guard forcing a prisoner into a small opening in a wall

'Scale, airplane, motorcycle.' Survivors told the U.N. that they had to stay in stress positions until they collapsed.

In August 2016,  the United Nations published a 374-page report on the atrocities to which the people of North Korea are subjected under the despotic regime of Kim Jong-Un. Startling testimonies from those who have escaped the totalitarian regime laid bare the extent of human rights abuses in the country. Those who compiled the report describe North Korea as a ‘shock to the conscience of humanity’ and a place ‘that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world’. Their report states: ‘In the political prison camps of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the inmate population has been gradually eliminated through deliberate starvation, forced labor, executions, torture, rape and . . . forced abortion and infanticide.’ In an unprecedented step, the head of the investigating panel, retired Australian judge Michael Kirby, has written to the 31-year-old North Korean dictator, warning him that he and his senior officials could one day face being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court for their crimes against humanity.

This drawing depicts prisoners foraging among live wild animals. In the Korean description: 'out of starvation and hunger, find snakes and rats and you eat them'

Drawings of corpses being left in the gulag: 'The mice eat the eyes, nose, ears, and toes of the corpses'

Since 1948, the country has been ruled by the Kim family. When Kim Il-Sung took power he subjected North Korea to his own brand of hard line Communism combined with the most extreme personality cult. His son, Kim Jong-Il and grandson Kim Jong-Un have maintained the regime. The result has been decades of famine, poverty and state-sponsored brutality. The people have been brainwashed to worship their ‘Dear Leader’ despite the physical privations and mental tortures they have suffered.

Forced Labor: One former prisoner says pregnant women were forced to do strenuous labor to force miscarriages. The report makes for gruesome reading. It is particularly chilling to note that even the slightest of infringements can see a person locked up for decades. One man was sent to prison for absent-mindedly using a newspaper printed with a photograph of Kim Jong-Il to mop up a spilled drink. According to another of the 80 witnesses who testified to the UN, a member of a hospital staff was investigated by State Security for accidentally breaking a portrait of Kim Il-sung while she was cleaning it. Given the total incompetence of the North Korean Government, it would not make humanity sad should North Korea suddenly become no more.

As always, stay safe and stay happy.

bird

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