DNA To Tell if “Lady Bluebeard” Death Fact or Fiction
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
The mystery surrounding the death of “Lady Bluebeard”
may soon be solved through DNA analysis, according to a recent article in The Chicago Tribune.
The folktale of Lady Bluebeard was based on female serial killer Belle Gunness’s crimes in the early 1900s. Gunness murdered at least 12 Norweigian bachelors who moved to the U.S. to pursue her.
After a fire destroyed the Gunness property, officials found more than 11 bodies dismembered and buried on the family’s farm in La Porte, Ind., one of which was initially presumed to be Gunness herself.
Suspicion arose, however, when many officials began to speculate that the woman in Gunness’s amateur grave on the farm was too small to be Gunness. Additionally, because the woman’s body was headless, a positive identification was difficult, as DNA testing was not available in 1908 when the bodies were found. The townspeople of La Porte—and historians since— suspected that Gunness killed another woman before torching her own house and leaving town, thus faking her death and disappearing into history as one of the U.S.’s most notorious criminals.
Now, experts plan to compare DNA samples from the female body that was found on Gunness’s farm, allegedly Gunness herself, with DNA samples taken from the envelope flaps of letters Gunness sent to a former lover.
One of Gunness’s decendants has already authorized the exhumation of the body in question. Based on her own genealogical research, she has said that she would be “shocked” if DNA analysis confirmed that the female body is that of Gunness.
DNA often provides answers in comparative identity cases and can also clarify the circumstances in a “whodunit” case. However, it seems that in the case of Lady Bluebeard, if the DNA does not match, the mystery may become thicker.
If the woman in the grave is not Lady Bluebeard, who is she? Further, if the two samples of DNA do not match, investigators may have to return to their initial question in this unsolved case: What happened to Lady Bluebeard?