Belle Sorenson Gunness Case Analysis
Belle Sorenson Gunness
Aleah WIllame
3rd hour Forensic Science
Belle Sorenson Gunness Case Analysis
Early life
Belle Sorenson Gunness was the daughter of Paul Pedersen Størset, who was a stonemason, and Berit Olsdatter. She was born on November 22, 1859 in Selbu, Norway, originally named Brynhild Paulsdatter Storseth, and was the youngest of 8 siblings and lived on a very small cotter's farm. Belle was a very large women being around six feet tall and weighing over two hundred pounds. Some say she was so muscular that she was sometimes mistaken for a man. Her family was very poor and this made Belle wish to have money when she became older, not wanting to live the way she did as a child. Due to this, she was picked on during her schooling which made her have a very rough childhood. People described her as being malicious and a liar. When Belle was only 18, she became pregnant, which ended in a miscarry after being kicked in the abdomen by a man who attacked her at a county dance, the man who came from a rich family was never prosecuted but got stomach cancer shortly after and died. …show more content…
but before this, two of her children, Caroline and Axel died during infancy, of acute colitis which has symptoms of nausea, lower abdominal pain, diarrhea, and fever which are similar symptoms of different forms of poisoning. Although Belle was never accused of poisoning her children, there are suspicions that she was responsible for their deaths. Coinsedently, both children had life insurance, and the companies paid out. But her first known murder was of her husband, Mads, on July 30, 1900. On that day, Mads two life insurance policies overlapped on that same day of his death. When the doctors examined his body, they found what looked to be strychnine poisoning, But prior to that, the sorenson family doctor had been treating him for a case of enlarged heart so instead he concluded that Mads had died of a heart
Aleah WIllame
3rd hour Forensic Science
Belle Sorenson Gunness Case Analysis
Early life
Belle Sorenson Gunness was the daughter of Paul Pedersen Størset, who was a stonemason, and Berit Olsdatter. She was born on November 22, 1859 in Selbu, Norway, originally named Brynhild Paulsdatter Storseth, and was the youngest of 8 siblings and lived on a very small cotter's farm. Belle was a very large women being around six feet tall and weighing over two hundred pounds. Some say she was so muscular that she was sometimes mistaken for a man. Her family was very poor and this made Belle wish to have money when she became older, not wanting to live the way she did as a child. Due to this, she was picked on during her schooling which made her have a very rough childhood. People described her as being malicious and a liar. When Belle was only 18, she became pregnant, which ended in a miscarry after being kicked in the abdomen by a man who attacked her at a county dance, the man who came from a rich family was never prosecuted but got stomach cancer shortly after and died. …show more content…
but before this, two of her children, Caroline and Axel died during infancy, of acute colitis which has symptoms of nausea, lower abdominal pain, diarrhea, and fever which are similar symptoms of different forms of poisoning. Although Belle was never accused of poisoning her children, there are suspicions that she was responsible for their deaths. Coinsedently, both children had life insurance, and the companies paid out. But her first known murder was of her husband, Mads, on July 30, 1900. On that day, Mads two life insurance policies overlapped on that same day of his death. When the doctors examined his body, they found what looked to be strychnine poisoning, But prior to that, the sorenson family doctor had been treating him for a case of enlarged heart so instead he concluded that Mads had died of a heart