The Washington herald., 1908-05-10

Laporte. Ind. May s.-There is no bet
Ter way of indicating the demoniacal
qualities now generally ascribed TO Mrs.
Belle Guinness hereabouts than by saying
that when it was announced at nightfan
to-day that no more bodies had been dug
up in that garden of death on the Gun
ness place, everybody in Laporte was sur
prised.
Always in her lifetime. suspected and
feared, the woman has now become in the
public mind a perfect paragon Of blood
lust, craft, and treachery. Apparently
nobody would be surprised to learn that
every square yard Of her hfty-aere farm
is sown with the bodies Of her victims.
Meantime, where is Belle Guinness? Are
those fragments of female body that
lie in the mOrgue. charred past recogni-
ton. really hers, or are they the remains
Of some one more Of her victims, intended
to throw dust in the eyes of the police
until the multi-murderer makes good her
escape?
Mystery Is Not Cleared.
There are SO many circumstances to
support either theory that the case re-
mains to-day as mysterious as it was last
Tuesday when the murder garden yielded
up its first grim fruit
Meantime certain things stand out as
facts-haTd and brutal facts that cannot
be expla,a ned away
Since little Dan Hudson and Joe Max
son got to work with their picks and
spades five days ago, they have dug up
what the doctors say are the remnants of
ten human bodies
-Four of them were buried in a single
Dit about four by seven feet
Only three of them have been ident-
fed with any certainty The first was
Andrew K Heigelien. naiddle-aged Nor
wegian, lured from his home at Aber-
deem, s. Oak. by the expectation of mar
riage with the well-to-do widow
The second was o. c. Budsberg, an
b. elderly farmer from lola, Wis. The same
bait brought him 10 his death The last
of the three identified bodies was Jennie
Olson. an eighteen-year-Old girl. and the
adopted daughter Of Belle Guinness Al
the remaining six whose bodies this ter
rible little garden has yielded were men.
with a single exception, and when that
is said. all that is known of them has
been stated
All Ten Are Slain.
That all ten Of these were murdered
there is no doubt As to the four whose
bodies were found buried beneath the
ruins of the house on the morning of
April d. there is some doubt Three OF
them were children of this Lueretia Bor-
gia, of Laporte-two girls and boy
Myrtle. aged eleven: Lucy nine. and
Philip. five. In the identity of the fourth
lies the solution of the problem.
Murder for revenue only was apparent
ly the passion that consumed Belle Gun
ness. That several of her victims were
persons from whose death she could get
profit In q pecunaTy way in no man
ner contrOyerts this statement In every
case of wholesale murder there have been
some victims who died because their
silence was deemed more precious than
gold. In such a position Jennie Olson
doubtless found herself. This adopted
daughter was a simple-minded. quiet girl
who was known TO the neighbOrs chiefly
because she did more work than any
hired man. She was Belle Guinness pret-
ty slave. And yet the mistress feared the
LrsV,fa faH
in quicklime in the same death garden
that had received the bodies Of others
who died because they had money,
Not Attractive Personally.
What sort of woman was this astound-
ing murderer? That is a hard question
and yet something can be done toward
answering, She was a Norwegian who
lacked about two years of the half-cen-
tury mark She was born in Norway,
and came 10 America as young girl. In
1's'eago in 1883 she married Max soren-
son, felIow-eountryman. He died sud
denly in 1890.
TWO years later she married Guinness
He also died suddenly, as viii be seen.
Death. sudden and mysterious, attended
Belle Guinness for many years. When
she came to Laporte six years ago with
Guinness. Mrs. Guinness was a fat. coarse
featured woman. who stood about five
feet seven, and weighed about 22O pounds
She had big, heavy head, a mon of
coarse hair Of a muddy brown, little ewes
that Just missed being black, huge hands
and arms. but feet grotesquely small for
the burden they had to support. Every
body who knew her agrees that she was
far from attractive.
Most of her acquaintances describe her
as repulsive Some of her neighbors go
further More a devil than a woman. &"
was the way William Dessielen put e.
and he ought TO know. because his farm
is next to the Guinness place.
Cordial at First Only,
MY aunt was always strange
woman" her nephew John Lawson, told
the police the other day. when you
first knew her she would be very cordial.
Then she would get ofiish.'
She has always been ofhsh. to say the
least. in Laporte. Her home for years
Continued on Page 8. Column S.
SEINE lumber firms say times VIII Eooz
be better and are holding up prices.