The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (37 page)

Richard and Debra’s fiancé, 20-year-old Mark Lang.

Police published mug shots of Steelman, and Willie When the Parkins got home, they found a full house—

was recognized when he checked into a Sacramento including two strangers with guns.

hotel on November 8. Officers descended on the scene Carol Jenkins, a houseguest of the Parkins, returned and both gunmen were swiftly arrested, booked on nine from a date around 3:00 A.M. and went directly to bed, counts of first-degree murder. Gretzler cracked under taking the silent house for granted at that hour of the interrogation, directing police to the scattered bodies of morning. Near dawn she was roused from sleep by two other victims while Steelman kept silent, refusing to friends of Mark Lang, who had spent the night trying enter a plea on the charges. In June 1974 Gretzler pled
103

GROUPIES

guilty to nine counts of murder, while Steelman submit-in L.A., some of the young women carrying notebooks ted his case to a judge and was promptly convicted. On and couching their interest in terms of “class projects,”

July 8, both defendants were sentenced to life imprison-while others frankly admitted their attraction for ment without parole, then returned to Arizona for trial Ramirez and his outspoken Satanism. One such told the on additional murder charges. A new round of trials press, “Do I love him? Yes, in my own childlike way. I saw both killers sentenced to die in Arizona’s gas cham-feel such compassion for him. When I look at him, I see ber. Willie Steelman died in prison in 1987 with his case a real handsome guy who just messed up his life still on appeal. Gretzler was executed by lethal injection because he never had anyone to guide him.” Two other on June 3, 1998.

groupies, one of them a porno model, circulated nude photos of themselves around the county jail, one young woman threatening her rival—and, for reasons still
GROUPIES:
Admirers of serial killers

unclear, the president of the United States—in violent Despite the brooding atmosphere of violence and per-fits of jealousy. Finally married to one of his fans, a fel-versity that surrounds serial killers, they sometimes have low Satanist, Ramirez also enjoys regular visits from a an almost hypnotic effect on the opposite sex, attracting female juror who sentenced him to die, belatedly con-

“groupies” in a bizarre twist on the celebrity syndrome.

vinced that “Richard didn’t get a fair trial.”

Aging CHARLES MANSON is notorious for the lingering An even more curious case involves HENRY LUCAS

devotion of his female “family” members (and a new and Phyllis Wilcox. Smitten with the one-eyed psy-generation of fans that staunchly believes he was chopath after long-running correspondence and several

“framed”), but other random slayers do quite well on jailhouse visits, Wilcox—a married woman still residing their own, without the benefit of preconditioned disci-with her husband to this day—became convinced of ples. Arizona’s Charles Schmid—“The Pied Piper of Tuc-Henry’s innocence and hatched a plot to free him from son”—had his own teenage rooting section at the trial death row. Obtaining a false driver’s license and other which sentenced him to death. THEODORE BUNDY

ID, Wilcox presented herself to the media as Frieda received numerous love letters from attractive young Powell, the one-time girlfriend Lucas earlier confessed women, many resembling his preferred victims with to murdering in 1983 when she was barely 15 years their long, brown hair parted in the middle; finally old. “Powell’s” sudden reappearance after 13 years was choosing one to be his jailhouse bride, Bundy beat the guaranteed to make headlines, and police soon learned clock and fathered a child from death row, via artificial the truth from various acquaintances of Wilcox. Phyllis insemination, before he was executed in 1989. In managed to avoid jail time on charges of obstructing Nevada, CARROLL COLE received visits and heart-rend-justice, but her half-baked effort to liberate Lucas was ing poems of love from a woman half his age. JOHN

foiled. Indeed, even had her masquerade been success-GACY’s alleged girlfriend, a twice-divorced mother of ful, Wilcox would have accomplished nothing: Lucas eight, wangled a series of TV talk-show appearances, stands convicted of 10 murders, and Powell’s case was and both “Hillside Stranglers”—KENNETH BIANCHI and not the one that sent him to death row.

ANGELO BUONO—have married since receiving their life See also ARTWORK AND MEMORABILIA

prison terms.

One previous Bianchi paramour, Veronica Compton, drew prison time of her own for attempted murder,
GUNNESS, Belle Paulsdatter

while trying to free her lover by mimicking the stran-America’s first “BLACK WIDOW” of the 20th century was gler’s technique with a random target, complete with a born Brynhild Paulsdatter Storset, on November 11, sample of Bianchi’s semen smuggled out of jail. In 1859, in the fishing hamlet of Selbu on Norway’s west prison, long since soured on Bianchi and his fickle coast. The daughter of an unsuccessful merchant, Bryn-ways, Compton attached herself to “Sunset Slayer”

hild immigrated to the United States in 1881; three DOUGLAS CLARK. One letter from Compton to Clark, in years later, she settled in Chicago, Americanizing her a classic case of understatement, declared: “Our humor given name to “Belle” (or sometimes “Bella”). In 1884, is unusual. I wonder why others don’t see the

at age 25, she married a Norwegian immigrant, Mads necrophilic aspects of existence as we do.”

Sorenson.

Ironically, considering his physical appearance and The couple opened a confectioner’s shop in 1896, the nature of his crimes, no modern psychopath has but the business was wiped out by fire the following drawn more ardent female groupies than “Night

year. Belle told her insurance agents that a kerosene Stalker” RICHARD RAMIREZ, the cadaverous devil wor-lamp had exploded, and the company paid off on her shiper sentenced to die for 13 murders in Los Angeles.

policy, although no lamp was found in the wreckage.

A regular fan club attended his 14-month murder trial The Sorensens used their found money to purchase a
104

GUNNESS, Belle Paulsdatter

home, but fire leveled the house in 1898, bringing fur-natural daughters: Myrtle, born in 1897, and Lucy, ther insurance payments. Bad luck dogged the couple, born in 1899. The new addition, Jennie Olsen, was a and a second house burned down before they found a foster daughter, passed along to Belle by parents who, home that met their needs, on Alma Street.

apparently, were tired of dealing with the child.

As everything Belle touched was soon reduced to In April 1902, Belle married a Norwegian farmer ashes, so her family began to dwindle in the latter named Peter Gunness. Less durable than Sorenson 1890s. Daughter Caroline, her oldest child, went first, in before him, Gunness lasted only eight months. On 1896. Two years later, Axel, her first son, was laid to December 16, 1902, he was killed when a heavy

rest. In each case, the children were diagnosed as victims sausage grinder “fell” from its place on a shelf, fractur-of “acute colitis,” demonstrating symptoms which—in ing his skull. A son, named Philip, was born of the brief hindsight—may have indicated they were poisoned.

union in 1903, and Jennie Olsen vanished from the On July 30, 1900, Mads Sorenson died at home,

farm three years later. When neighbors inquired, Belle exhibiting the classic symptoms of strychnine poison-explained that her foster child had been sent “to a fining. Belle admitted giving her husband “a powder,” in ishing school in California.”

an effort to “help his cold,” but the family physician Widowed for the second time, with only children to did not request an autopsy. With Mads under treatment assist her on the farm, Belle started hiring drifters who for an enlarged heart, his death was automatically would work for a while and then, apparently, move on.

ascribed to natural causes.

She also started placing “lonely hearts” ads in Norwe-The widow Sorenson collected her insurance money gian-language newspapers throughout the Midwest, and departed from Chicago, settling outside La Porte, entertaining a series of prospective husbands at her Indiana, with three children under her wing. Two were farm. Somehow, none of them measured up to her standards . . . and none of them were ever seen again.

On April 28, 1908, the Gunness homestead was leveled by fire. Searchers, digging through the rubble, found a quartet of incinerated bodies in the basement; three were clearly children, while the fourth—a woman’s headless corpse, without the skull in evidence—was taken for the last remains of Mrs. Gunness.

The local sheriff arrested handyman Ray Lamphere, employed by Belle from 1906 until his dismissal in February 1908, on charges of arson and murder.

The case became more complicated on May 5, when searchers started finding other bodies on the Gunness ranch. Dismembered, wrapped in gunny sacks, and doused with lye, a few reduced to skeletons, the corpses told a graphic tale of wholesale slaughter spanning years. The final body count has been a subject of enduring controversy. Without citing its source, the Guinness Book of World Records credited Belle with 16 known victims and another 12 “possibles.” The local coroner’s report was more modest, listing—in addition to the basement bodies—10 male victims, two females, and an unspecified quantity of human bone fragments. Belle’s suitors were buried together in the muck of a hog pen, while her female victims had been planted in a nearby garden patch.

Only six of the victims were positively identified. Jennie Olsen was there, far removed from the mythical finishing school. Farmhands Eric Gurhold and Olaf Lindblom had ended their days in the hog pen, beside farmers John Moo of Elbow Lake, Minnesota, and Ole Budsberg of lola, Wisconsin. Both of the latter had answered Belle’s newspaper ads—and so, presumably, Belle Gunness (Author’s collection)

had their six anonymous companions in death. The single
105

GUNNESS, Belle Paulsdatter

“Jane Doe,” buried beside Jennie Olsen, is an anomaly, Indiana, station. She was bundled on a stretcher, Hurst unexplained to this day.

recalled, and seemed quite ill.

A coroner’s inquest was launched on April 29, and Perhaps, but what are we to make of the reported witness depositions taken through May 1 reflect a stan-sighting at La Porte on April 30? While visiting Belle’s dard hearing “over the dead body of Belle Gunness.”

closest friend, Almetta Hay, a local farmer claimed he After May 5, with the discovery of new corpses, official saw the missing woman sitting down to coffee. When documents began describing the headless woman as “an Almetta died in 1916, neighbors picking through the lit-unidentified adult female,” assuming that Belle might ter in her crowded shack retrieved a woman’s skull, have faked her own death to escape from the scene. A wedged in between two mattresses. In spite of specula-futile search for the missing skull was begun on May tion that it might belong to the decapitated basement 19, resulting in discovery of Belle’s dental bridge, com-victim, the intriguing lead was not pursued.

plete with anchor teeth attached. Ignoring the various More “sightings” were recorded through the years.

unanswered questions, the coroner issued his final In 1917, a childhood neighbor recognized Belle Gun-report on May 20, declaring that Belle Gunness had ness on admission as a patient to the South Bend hospi-died “at the hands of persons unknown.”

tal where he was working as a student nurse. He called Ray Lamphere, from his cell, was adamant in claim-police, but Belle had slipped away before detectives ing that Belle was still alive. On April 28, he said, once reached the scene. In 1931, a Los Angeles prosecutor Belle had set the house on fire, he drove her to the rail-wrote to La Porte’s sheriff, claiming that murder defen-way station at Stillwell, Indiana. Police initially took dant Esther Carlson—charged with poisoning 81-year-his story at face value, arresting an innocent widow, old August Lindstrom for money—might be Belle

Flora Heerin, en route from Chicago to visit relatives Gunness. Carlson carried photographs of three children in New York City. Hauled off the train at Syracuse and resembling Belle’s, but La Porte could not afford to briefly detained as Belle Gunness, Mrs. Heerin retali-send its sheriff west in those Depression days, and the ated in a lawsuit charging Syracuse police with false suspect died of tuberculosis before trial, leaving the arrest.