The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories (29 page)

Wanda Webb Holloway, a Channelview, Texas, housewife, was just trying to be a good mother to her eighth-grade daughter, Shanna Harper, who was trying out for the school's cheerleading squad and facing stiff competition in Amber Heath, a classmate who had gotten a spot on the squad two years in a row. Holloway had the idea that if she could have Heath's mother “taken care of,” the girl would be so grief stricken she would drop out of cheerleading, assuring Holloway's daughter of the plum cheerleading spot.

So Holloway hired and conspired with a hit man, actually her ex-brother-in-law, even giving him a pair of diamond earrings as a down payment. But police got wind of the scheme before it could be carried out, and in September 1991, she was arrested for solicitation of murder.

THE AMY FISHER STORY

Amy Fisher led a charmed life—wealthy parents, luxurious Long Island home, her own phone line—but the Jewish-Italian princess had a dark past. When she was twelve, she was raped by the man who had been hired to retile her family's bathroom floor, and she was afraid to tell anyone—least of all her father, who was prone to violent rages.

In 1991, when Amy totaled the white Dodge her father had bought her for her sixteenth birthday, Daddy took the car—and Amy—to Complete Auto Body and Fender Repair to get it fixed. It was there that sixteen-year-old Amy met Joey Buttafuoco, head mechanic and lady-killer.

The two felt a mutual attraction, and despite Joey's wife and two kids and Amy's tender age, they jumped headfirst into a torrid affair. They had sex in hotel rooms, in Amy's house, and on Joey's boat. At Joey's
suggestion, Amy started working for ABBA escort service as a prostitute; she was so popular that she took her business freelance after a couple months. She started sleeping with other men, but Joey didn't care—he was in it for the sex, which was apparently really, really good. Amy, on the other hand, loved Joey and begged him to leave his wife, which he refused to do.

Amy wouldn't take no for an answer. After all, she'd grown up rich and privileged, and she was used to getting what she wanted. She wondered what would happen if Joey's wife, Mary Jo Buttafuoco, suddenly disappeared—and she then decided to make it happen. Amy promised Peter Guagenti, a Brooklyn College dropout, $800 and sex in exchange for use of his .25 handgun. On May 19, 1992, she went to the high school nurse's office and claimed she was sick and had to go home early. Peter picked her up in his Thunderbird, drove her to the Buttafuoco home, and handed her the gun.

Mary Jo answered the door wearing her sweats—she was painting some lawn furniture. After a brief conversation in which Amy claimed that her sixteen-year-old sister was having an affair with Joey, Mary Jo asked Amy to leave and retreated into the house. Before the door could swing shut, Amy had shot her in the head, severing Mary Jo's carotid artery.

The rest is history, well documented in myriad made-for-TV movies, books, and Web sites dedicated to the Amy Fisher story. In fact, Amy posted bail (for a whopping $2 million) with the money she earned from TV and book deals. She was sentenced to five to fifteen years in prison, and Joey spent four months in jail for statutory rape. As for Mary Jo, she survived, despite major paralysis on one half of her face.

INDIANA OGRESS

Belle Gunness was very practical. She murdered for money. Belle's first husband, Mads Sorenson, opened a confectioner's shop with her in 1896. The business didn't do well, and it burned down. Luckily, the couple had insurance. They bought several houses, each of which also burned down. Luckily, the houses were insured. Two of the couple's babies died—of acute colitis, said the doctors. The children had been insured. And then in 1900, Mads died from what the doctors decided was a heart attack. Belle collected on his two insurance policies totaling $8,000.

Belle took the money and her remaining kids, including a foster daughter, Jennie Olson, and bought a two-story brick farmhouse in LaPorte, Indiana. In
1902, Belle was married again, to a farmer named Peter Gunness. Peter, a widower, brought along his baby, who died a week after the wedding. Peter lasted about a year, before a heavy iron sausage grinder fell onto his head from a top shelf. Daughter Myrtle confided to a school chum that Mama had conked Papa on the noggin and killed him, but nobody paid attention. Belle collected Peter's $3,000 insurance policy and dressed herself in mourning black—but not for long.

Soon Belle was placing ads in Scandinavian newspapers across the Midwest, seeking a husband. “Widow with large farm looking for a helpmate,” the ads went, adding that it was important that the prospective groom produce money of his own, so that she would know he wasn't merely a cad after her fortune. Corresponding with hopeful suitors, she would ask them to bring with them a sum of at least $1,000 to prove their sincerity.

Ole Busberg, Olaf Lindbloom, Herman Konitzer, Emil Tell, Olaf Jensen, Charles Nieberg, Tonnes Lien, and who knows how many other Olafs, Oles, and Erics came to LaPorte to woo Belle. Trouble was, none of them stayed. Belle would be seen with each man around town for a few days, hanging on his arm and adding his money to her bank account, then suddenly he'd be gone—gone back to Minnesota, gone back to Sweden, she would say.
Plowing her fields while wearing the coat and hat the man had left behind, she'd bemoan her lot: she was a poor widow, deserted by another scoundrel who loved her and dumped her. And another ad would appear in the lonely hearts section of the
Scandinavian News
.

Somewhere along the way, Jennie Olson disappeared too. Belle told the neighbors that her foster daughter had gone to an exclusive girls' finishing school in California.

Finally, in January 1908, Andrew Helgelein showed up in LaPorte, bringing with him $1,000 as proof of his good intentions. Helgelein had the “good luck” to disappear, like the others. But when his brother, Asa, hadn't heard from Andrew in some months, he wrote to Belle. Belle wrote back, saying Andrew had returned to the Old Country. Asa didn't buy it. He announced that he was coming to LaPorte to see for himself.

On April 27, 1908, Belle visited a lawyer. A farmhand whom she had fired, Ray Lamphere, was harassing her, she said, and just in case anything happened to her, she wanted to make a will, leaving her money to her children.

In the early morning hours of April 28, Belle's farmhouse burned to the ground. Found in the ashes were the burned bodies of Belle and her three children. Ray Lamphere, the disgruntled farmhand (and also Belle's sometime lover), was arrested for arson and murder.

There was one problem: the body presumed to be Belle's was missing its head. Even without the head, it was obvious that this corpse was much smaller and lighter than the hefty widow. Then Asa Helgelein showed up in town, suspecting foul play in his brother's disappearance and asking permission to dig around the farm.

On May 5, the first body was uncovered. It was brother Andrew, with fatal doses of arsenic and strychnine in his stomach. Quickly, the digging crew uncovered more bodies, including that of Jennie Olson. All in all, at least thirteen bodies were dug up, but the final estimate was higher than that, perhaps forty, because of the numerous bone fragments found in the pigpen. Belle had been feeding her suitors' bodies to the pigs.

Ray Lamphere was found guilty only of arson, because it was impossible to prove whether or not the headless corpse was Belle. He was sent to prison for two to twenty years and died there of tuberculosis two years later, still insisting that Belle was alive somewhere.

He wasn't the only person who believed she was alive. Sightings of Belle became as common as UFO sightings would be seventy years later. In fact, a woman fitting her description was connected to a 1931 murder in California, where Belle was believed to have fled after the fire.

THE FRANKIE SILVER STORY