Photos: Serial killer Belle Gunness, the "La Porte Ghoul"

From coast to coast, newspapers in 1908 recognized the circulation benefits of the grisly tale of Belle Gunness. She was proclaimed “the La Porte Ghoul,” a “Female Bluebeard,” and “Hell’s Princess.” The story started when a fire consumed Gunness’s La Porte, Indiana home on April 28, 1908. The site soon became a macabre carnival as bodies were found in the wreckage, those of Gunness' three children and a headless body of woman, thought to be Gunness herself. As authorities searched the surrounding farm for her missing head, other bodies were found. It was soon revealed that Gunness had lured men to her farm, taken their money and then went missing. A thousand curiosity-seekers were joined by the relatives of missing men, as word spread of evidence that Gunness was both a murder victim and a murderer.