Articles labeled: belle gunness murder mystery

Belle Gunness, a notorious serial killer from Indiana at the turn of the 20th century, may have murdered children.

Investigators gingerly peeled back the brittle lining of the small caskets buried a century ago in a Forest Park cemetery, revealing the remains of three children—orange-stained ribs, leg bones, pieces of skull. They were jarringly mingled with hair and bits of charred tissue, hinting at the house fire that finally put authorities on the trail of a cunning serial killer.

“We couldn’t have asked for anything better than this,” said forensic anthropologist Stephen Nawrocki on the condition of the bones of a 5-year-old boy found in one of the metal caskets. “This is going to come out just beautifully.”

The exhumations were part of a broadening quest to shed light on the mystery of Belle Gunness, a wealthy widow accused of murdering as many as 30 men, women and children, often dismembering the bodies at her hilltop farm in LaPorte, Ind.