The people she killed.

Andrew Helgelien

A bachelor farmer in his late forties who answered Belle's ad in 1906 and corresponded with her for more than a year. Her letters survive. They are affectionate, persistent and specific about money: come alone, bring cash, tell no one. He sold out, drew roughly $2,900 from his bank, and arrived in LaPorte on January 2, 1908. He was seen in town with Belle at the First National Bank cashing a draft, and then not seen again after January 14.

His brother Asle wrote to Belle asking after him. She replied that Andrew had gone to Norway. Asle didn't believe it, came to LaPorte in early May 1908, and persuaded Sheriff Smutzer to dig in the soft spots of the hog pen. The first hole produced Andrew, wrapped in sacking, four feet down. He was buried in Patton Cemetery by lantern light to keep the crowds away.

Ole B. Budsberg

An elderly widower who answered the ad, mortgaged his Wisconsin farm, and came to LaPorte in the spring of 1907. He was seen at a LaPorte bank on April 6, 1907, cashing a mortgage draft. His sons Oscar and Mathew wrote to Belle when he stopped answering. She told them he had left for Oregon. He had not. Remains believed to be his were among those recovered in May 1908.

John Moe

Answered the ad in 1906, exchanged letters for months, and arrived in LaPorte in December 1906 with roughly $1,000. He wrote home once from the farm. Then nothing. His family's inquiries were answered with the usual story: he had moved on.

Henry Gurholt

Came to work the farm in 1907 and wrote his family that he liked the place and the widow. After the letters stopped, Belle told anyone who asked that he had gone off with horse traders to Chicago. His trunk and his fur overcoat stayed at the farm, which is how his family knew.

Tonnes Peter Lien

Arrived April 2, 1907 carrying $1,000 in cash, expecting to marry Belle and clear the mortgage on the farm as his contribution. Named in Ray Lamphere's later account as one of the men he helped bury. The name is spelled several ways in the 1908 papers: Lien, Lion, Lein.

Olaf Lindboe

One of the earliest hired men, and by some accounts the first suitor. He vanished in 1904. Belle told his family he had gone to St. Louis for the World's Fair. Remains tentatively identified as his were recovered in 1908.

Unidentified

At least seven sets of remains recovered from the farm were never matched to a name. Among them, investigators believed, were several men, one adult woman, and the partial remains of children. For years after 1908, letters arrived in LaPorte from families across the upper Midwest whose sons had gone to Indiana to meet a widow.

The 1908 count was somewhere between eleven and fourteen bodies from the farm. Later estimates that run to 40 include every man reported missing after corresponding with Belle, whether or not remains were ever found.