Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1908 — HRS. GUNNESS PROBABLY DEAD [ARTICLE]

HRS. GUNNESS PROBABLY DEAD

Indications Point to the Death of the ArchJlnrderess When the House Was Burned. It has been quite positively decided that Mrs. Belle Gunness, the Laporte murderess, was burned when her hous was consumed by fire, and it is also tolerably certain that Ray Lamphere, who is held in the Laporte jail, is either guilty of having performed the" deed or has knowledge of who did set the house cm fire. , It has been published that Rev. A. E. Schell, a minister from Hammond, was working on the prisoner to try to convert him and at the same time extract a confession from him about the commission of thiscrime and learn all that he knows about the crimes of Mrs. Gunness. The officers have been following every clue that has been unearthed and as long as it was thought that Mrs. “Gunness was alive there were messages coming from all over the country to the effect that women answering the description of the murderess had been seen and in many cases they were apprehended and detained until it was established that they were innocent. A minor or more correctly, mineral chemist, or assayer took the ashes from the place where the head of the burned woman was and found that there was enough gold there to establish the fact that the dead woman had about the same amount of gold in her teeth that Mrs. Gunness had. Mrs. Gunness was a shrewd criminal and avoided suspicion very cleverly. She found It necessary during her life at Laporte to tell many lies, but sbe did so with such a degree of assurance that people never regarded her as an untruthful woman. She had for some years car/led on a correspondence with different ijffen whom she expected to entice to 'her home under other names, the mail carrier past her country home saying that he had delivered many letters to her under the names of Mrs. Belle Sorensen and Njs. Jennie Hinkley. He carried letters to her almost every day and she had a large list of correspondents, generally acquired through the matrimonial agency, and it was through this agency that she got a hold on the men that she lured to her home with money and then murdered them In order to get their money. It is almost positive now that she murdered both of her husbands, and it will probably never be known Bow many fell victims to her cunning. While present indications point to her death, the officers are not taking it as altogether conclusive and they are following up all claims that tend to substantiate her existence at this time. , , \ . > - :— 1 :