The La Porte farm where Norwegian immigrant Belle Gunness murdered an estimated 40+ victims from 1896 to 1908, now a documented dark tourism destination.
McClung Rd, La Porte, IN 46350
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
No admission; public roadway drive-by and walk-by access to the historic farm site.
Access
Limited Access
Rural road and farm field area; no formal paths or infrastructure at the site
Equipment
Photos OK
One of America's Most Prolific Documented Serial Murder Sites · Belle Gunness Murder Farm · Early 20th-Century True Crime Landmark · Dark Tourism Pilgrimage Site
Belle Gunness arrived in the United States from Norway in 1881. After the suspicious death of her first husband in Chicago in 1900, she collected insurance and relocated to a 48-acre farm northwest of La Porte, Indiana. The farm on McClung Road became the site of a sustained murder operation that investigators eventually estimated claimed 40 or more lives across approximately twelve years.
Gunness ran matrimonial advertisements in Norwegian-language newspapers throughout the Midwest, targeting widowers and bachelors with assets. Suitors who responded and traveled to La Porte were killed, often shortly after signing over savings or property. Among the documented victims: Andrew Helgelien of South Dakota, who arrived in January 1908 and was last seen alive on the farm; and Gunness's second husband Peter Gunness, who died in December 1906 in circumstances ruled accidental but widely doubted. Her ward and foster daughter Jennie Olsen, 15, disappeared from the farm in 1902.
On April 28, 1908, the farmhouse burned to the ground. In the basement, investigators found the decapitated body of a woman initially assumed to be Gunness, along with the bodies of her three youngest children. Excavation of the farm property subsequently uncovered the dismembered remains of multiple victims, many wrapped in burlap. Ray Lamphere, a farmhand, was convicted of arson. No murder conviction was ever secured. The identity of the woman found in the basement was disputed at trial and has never been definitively established — Gunness herself was never found or prosecuted, and whether she died in the fire or staged her death remains an open historical question.
Sources
The Belle Gunness farm site on McClung Road has drawn paranormal investigators since at least the 1990s. Multiple visiting groups have noted an atmosphere described as oppressive or heavy in the area corresponding to the original farmhouse footprint and the excavated rear of the property where victim remains were recovered. Reported phenomena include disembodied voices, anomalous sounds, and investigator equipment responding to environmental triggers without identifiable cause.
The Hoosier Myths and Legends podcast devoted a dedicated episode to the farm's haunting lore, citing the density of documented deaths on the property and the unresolved nature of Gunness's own fate as contributing factors to the site's paranormal reputation. Some accounts connect specific phenomena to Andrew Helgelien, whose brother Asle traveled to La Porte and triggered the April 1908 investigation by demanding answers about his missing sibling; Asle's persistence is credited with breaking the case open.
Because the farmhouse burned and no structures remain, the experience is purely atmospheric — the site today is agricultural land with no markers or formal interpretation. The absence of signage has done little to reduce visitation among true crime and paranormal interest communities, for whom the farm is one of Indiana's most significant historical landmarks of its type.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
The former 48-acre Gunness farm property off McClung Road is a documented dark tourism pilgrimage site. The farmhouse burned in April 1908; no original structures remain. Visitors come to mark the site of one of American history's most prolific documented serial murder cases, covered extensively in national press since the early 20th century.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Elfrida, AZ
The property operated as the Cochise Guest Lodge and Ranch, a dude ranch in Arizona's remote Sulphur Springs Valley. On December 3, 1977, ranch hand James Dean Clark killed four people — ranch owners Charles and Mildred Thumm and two fellow wranglers, Gerald McFerron and George Martin — in a spree that ended with his arrest in El Paso. Clark was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder in 1978 and executed by the State of Arizona on April 14, 1993. The property was subsequently acquired by VisionQuest National, a youth rehabilitation organization founded in 1973, which operates it as a residential program to this day.
Hawthorne, NJ
On January 9-10, 1850, former farmhand John Jonston stabbed Judge John Van Winkle and his wife Jane to death at their home on Goffle Road in what would become Hawthorne, marking the first murder in Passaic County's recorded history. Jonston was convicted and hanged in the county's first execution. The house gained a haunted reputation, with an 1882 New York Times account describing it as 'the abode of unearthly visitants.'
Gastonia, NC
Lincoln Academy was a boarding and day school for African American students near Crowders Mountain in Gaston County, North Carolina, founded by missionary educator Emily Catherine Prudden and opened in 1888. Administered by the American Missionary Association, it educated thousands until it closed in 1955; its buildings have since been demolished, leaving a cemetery and a historical marker.