Talk:Belle Gunness

Problem

The last, and second to last paragraphs of this section do not flow. It's like it's missing an entire paragraph. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Gunness#Early_years —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.97.143.74 (talk) 01:06, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Please see New News. The confession of Ray Lanphere is a physical document that was witnessed by Chicago Tribune reporter Edward Bechly the first week of January 1910. This document likely still exists in archives or the case file, and should be used as a reference. On page 16 of Mr. Bechly's narrative "Lanphere's Confession" is a summary of what he read; "In the confession, Lanphere said that he had killed Mrs. Gunness and children with an axe, sprinkled the bodies with kerosene and set fire to them and the house. It gave details of the slaying, and told of his part in the former murders which occurred at the Gunness farm, his task usually being the burying of the bodies in the garden. The essential fact, however, was that the murderess was not alive as a fugitive". Eyeze (talk) 04:04, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Stub

No longer a stub, some of the formatting is incorrect, and the last section is not only redundant but apparently contradicts some of the earlier story. Someone with more knowledge on this subject needs to clean it up.

Real?

Is this real? The way it's written is like a novel, and I don't know how anyone could know some of the things the article contains... it feels more like I'm reading a mystery story than a factual article... ~ Guest

• This IS real...it just needs to be cleaned up a bit. Thanos6 13:18, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
• It's definitely real. There are dozens of books and articles about her, which makes it unfortunate that this isn't sourced better. --Charlene 07:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

If I didnt know any better I'd say a local historian wrote this." Rexmage

There are feminist attempts to defend her as a women who defied conventional gender expectations (g). I have a link or two to these people, if commentary is relevant to the article. Note that it is rather deranged commentary by people who ought to be in some sort of home rather thatn the tenured positions they apparantly occupy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.249.69 (talk) 03:04, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Name

According to Dagens Næringsliv 2003-09-21/21 page 36, her name was Brynhild Størsetgjerde. This is supported by this text at Nasjonalbiblioteket Hans Melien har skrevet om Belle Gunness – massemordersken fra Selbu (Grøndahl 1978). Dette er historien om husmannsjenta Brynhild Paulsdatter Størsetgjerde (f. 1859) som utvandret fra Selbu i 1881 og som etter hvert drepte minst 38 personer. Så mange lik ble det funnet på farmen hennes i La Porte, . Nsaa 06:26, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

That was her maiden name. She used "Belle" as a first name in America, and Gunness was of course her last husband's surname. --Charlene 07:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Sources/etc. -- copyright problem?

The vast majority of this article was added all at once by an anonymous user, who uses very peculiar phrases more akin to a book than an encyclopedia article. It makes me very suspicious that the text may have been copied straight from some book or other reference in a violation of copyright. I'm not sure what to do about it at this point, but I added this so that others who look at this page in the future might be on the lookout for mentions elsewhere. A total rewrite might eventually be necessary. DreamGuy 19:59, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

New News

There is an article in today's (May 14, 2008) Chicago Tribune about the murders and how the bodies of her children have been exhumed. [1]. Someone with more knowledge about this than I could used this to expand/improve/update the article some. Thanks. Web Warlock (talk) 15:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I have found new information regarding this article. While going through old documents, I found a 16-page narrative from Edward Bechly (pen name Edward Beckly) who was the Chicago Tribune reporter that broke the story of the confession of Ray Lanphere during the first week of January 1910. The narrative goes into great detail of the story of how Reverend Edwin A. Schell was reluctant to disclose the confession, but was ultimately convinced by the reporter that it was in the best interest of the public to release the information. Eyeze (talk) 03:43, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Question about edit

When I go to the page,the text line starting with "Local doctors replicated the conditions of the..." has no phargraph brakes on the on-line page. I'm not sure how to go about fixing it. CygnetFlying (talk) 22:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Maiden name?

The article gives three maiden names: Størseth, Stoerset and Storset. Additionally, there is a reference here on the talk page listing her maiden name as Størsetgjerde. So, which is correct? ExRat (talk) 20:10, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Størseth, Stoerset and Storset are all actually the same thing. 
 When writing Norwegian words or names on an American keyboard the "ø" is replaced by "oe" or sometimes just as "o".  
 I can't say anything about Stoersetgjerde. PaxMalum (talk) 05:12, 21 March 2010 (UTC)PaxMalum

Jennie Olsen

This page is very inconsistent, The page lists that she had 5 children and names them and then all the sudden mentions this Jennie Olsen. Thunderbender18 (talk) 22:43, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Death date ambiguous

The article really pushes the suggestion that Gunness didn't die in the especially given that the female body that was found was of such a small woman. Is it correct to have such an unambiguous date of death when it's not clear at all when she died? 69.125.134.86 (talk) 20:43, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Who's Elizabeth?

"A local delivery boy who had brought some groceries to Elizabeth’s home..." This is the only time the name Elizabeth is mentioned anywhere in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.126.53.226 (talk) 18:50, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified

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Copyright problem

User:DreamGuy was quite right when he noted above that the content had the markers of a copyvio. The material was copied here very early in the article's history. I did a search for the text run "C. Christofferson, a neighbouring farmer, took one look at the charred remains of this body and said that it was not the remains of Belle Gunness" and it took me to page 258 of the 1992 book World Encyclopedia of 20th Century Murder by Jay Robert Nash. Reviewing the page shows that this stretch of text is hardly alone. This entire paragraph is lifted directly from the same page of the book:

Lamphere did not help his cause much. At the moment Sheriff Smutzer confronted him and before a word was uttered by the lawman, Lamphere blurted: "Did Widow Gunness and the kids get out all right?" He was then told about the fire, but he denied having anything to do with it, claiming that he was not near the farm when the blaze occurred. A youth, John Solyem, was brought forward. He said that he had been watching the Gunness place (he gave no reasons for this) and that he saw Lamphere running down the road from the Gunness house just before the structure erupted in flames.Lamphere snorted to the boy: "You wouldn't look me in the eye and say that!"..."Yes, I will," replied Solyem bravely. "You found me hiding behind the bushes and you told me you'd kill me if I didn't get out of there." Lamphere was arrested and charged with murder and arson. Then scores of investigators, sheriff's deputies, coroner's men and many volunteers began to search the ruins for evidence.

Although I can only see a small stretch of the book, it's obvious from what I can see that there's more. There's a clean reversion to revert to, but there's not much content there. :/ --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 02:15, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://www.biography.com/people/belle-gunness-235416. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 15:06, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Further Reading

The Further Reading on this page has a LOT of bullet points. I cleaned up the punctuation a bit, but I'm planning to mine these for use as online citations when I add more content. Matuko 04:13, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Indeed – I put those there, rescued after one of the many copyvio clean-ups here. That was a mistake, I'd have done better to put them here – so that's what I'm doing now:

Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:14, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Newspapers are not considered primary sources. Primary sources would be the firsthand writings of the people involved in the circumstance... Stevenmitchell (talk) 21:16, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

A bit late to the commentary here, but agree with @Stevenmitchell - how are newspaper stories "primary sources?" They are by definition secondary sources and are completely legitimate, and in fact essential, to Wikipedia's WP:RS and WP:V policies. Now a long list of sources with no connection to the prose is not good, but the wholesale removal of them under the "primary sources" rationale is just plain incorrect. - Fuzheado | Talk 15:44, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Disruptive Editing

There is an anonymous editor, 2601:246:c700:2db2:f991:606b:c2b4:e94f, who, although not contributing to any of the article sources or research, has persistently marked up the article page to either encourage or discourage an article rewrite. It is hard to tell what their motivations or skills are. They literally misspelled the word, lead, as lede in the complaint of their template heading. But I am posting that here, so when the actual contributors to this article return they may have some idea of what is occurring here... Stevenmitchell (talk) 21:29, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that "lede" was a misspelling of "lead" as the word "lede" actually exists and was used correctly in the given case. See: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/lede Nakonana (talk) 20:49, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Lanphere's Confession (sic)

The LaPorte Historical Museum has a copy of the 16-page narrative written by Chicago Tribune reporter Edward Bechly. They also have a extensive exhibit on Belle Gunness. The Chicago Tribune newspaper articles are available within the Chicago Tribune online archives. Eyeze (talk) 00:20, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Images of farm

I just created a category for her on Wikimedia Commons that's includes a bunch of photographs of her farm and people looking around for bodies or whatever. It would be really cool if someone could add them to the article. They can be found here. I would do it myself, but I'm pretty busy with other stuff right now. Thanks! Adamant1 (talk) 05:43, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

I added the commons cat to the end of the article. Schazjmd (talk) 15:30, 15 January 2023 (UTC)