WEBVTT - Weevil Doer 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.440 Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:14.440 iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.440 the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.159 of these amazing tales are right there on display, just 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:28.840 waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.080 People have been making wine in the San Julian region 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.519 of France for centuries. The wine harvested from their grapes 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.479 is their pride and joy. But like any product that 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:48.600 depends on a plant in order to survive, the wine 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:52.600 production there is vulnerable to crop failure. The year was 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:56.760 fifteen forty five. That season, the vineyards were utterly ravaged 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:00.960 by insects, devastating the winemakers of the region. So what 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:03.080 did they do? Well? If it was you or I, 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:05.280 the most we could do is start from scratch and 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.560 hope that things turned out better next season. But remember 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.440 this was France in the early Renaissance. For all the 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.480 advancements in art and culture, it was still a very 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.360 spiritually driven society, and there was recourse for the average 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.240 person who felt that they had been wronged by an animal. 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:25.440 They could take that animal to ecclesiastical court, and so 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.440 that year the people of San Julyllen decided to do 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.360 just that to a species of weavil that they blamed 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.840 for the destruction of their vineyards. They hired Pierre Ducal 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:38.200 to be their legal representative, and he filed a complaint 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:43.120 with the court. It named the weevil species ringkites oroctus 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.760 as the culprits and demanded punishment for the offending insect. 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.280 The state appointed a legal team to defend the weavils 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.400 and the trial was set. Predictably, the weavil trial did 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:58.200 not last long. After hearing the opening statements of both sides, 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.559 the chair of the court, Frescois Bonivart, made a ruling. 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.080 He declined to pass sentence on the weevils, saying that 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.080 the creatures acted according to their nature and according to 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.560 the laws of God. Therefore, it was the prosecution who 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.280 needed to reflect on their own worthiness in the eyes 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.080 of God. The weevils represented, in the court's view, divine 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:22.359 punishment on the people of Sant july En. Bonavard said 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.040 that the citizens of San Julien needed to demonstrate that 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.119 they were a good Christian community. They had to collectively 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.400 repent of all their sins, pay their tithes to the church, 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.280 and march in solemn procession around the vineyards. The list 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.200 of pious activities was extensive, with the mandate that at 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.880 least two people from every Son Julienne household participates in 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:45.160 order for the repentance to be true. Not long after, 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.560 representatives from Saint Julienne submitted a report to the local 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.040 curate saying that they had done everything the court had 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.359 asked and the weevils subsequently were no longer a problem. 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:57.840 It was maybe inconvenient for the people, but their problem 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.560 was over for forty one year years at least in 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.040 fifteen eighty seven, a new generation of weavils would return 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.840 and cause trouble for the people again. On April thirteenth 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:13.000 of that year, representatives of San Julien requested legal assistance 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.200 for dealing with another wave of their weavil driven blight. 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:19.680 In their petition, they referenced the earlier decision of the 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:23.080 Ecclesiastical Cords, saying that the weavils had an i quote, 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:28.360 resumed their pegradations and are doing incalculable injury, and as such, 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:32.000 they asked the Prince Bishop to appoint new legal representatives 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.800 for the weavils since their original legal defendants were deceased, 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.520 they wanted to try the case again, the same crime, 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.680 just different culprits. This time, the state complied, and the Weavils, 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.680 for the second time, now went to trial for destroying 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:49.160 the vineyards of San Julien. As you'd imagine, the defense 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.520 maintained the argument from fifteen forty six, saying that the 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.400 weavils were created by God and thus had a right 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.200 to feed on the grasses of the earth. The prosecution, 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:00.800 on the other hand, argued that orrding to the Bible, 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:04.600 animals are subservient to man, to which the defense rebudded 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.360 that man certainly has a right to command the animals, 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.440 but not to prosecute them. The trial finally ended not 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.040 with a punishment for the weavils or another round of 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:16.880 piety for the people of San Julienne, but with a 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.560 compromise of sorts. The mayor offered the weavils a patch 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:22.960 of land to live on where they could feast to 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.080 their hearts content. The legal team for the Weavils agreed 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:29.200 to this, but before the agreement was finalized, one of 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.919 the weavil's advocates pointed out that he couldn't sign the 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:36.040 agreement after seeing the land. It was barren and unwelcoming. 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.719 Experts were dispatched to examine the land on behalf of 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:43.320 the Weavils, and that's where the story ends as far 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:45.880 as we know. You see, the final two pages of 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:50.600 the court documentation no longer exist because, in an ironic twist, 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:52.760 it seems that at some point in the past few 0:04:52.839 --> 0:05:10.400 hundred years, those pages were eaten by bugs. Bell was 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.440 a hard woman, born of hard times. She grew up 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:15.919 working on a farm in Norway before emigrating to the 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:18.920 US in eighteen eighty one she was only twenty one 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.840 years old. She worked other hard jobs in the Chicago 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:26.560 area until she met and married another Norwegian immigrant, Mads Sorensen, 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.680 in eighteen eighty four, and it was around this time 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:32.839 that Bell was awoken to the wonders of insurance. It 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:35.159 struck her as odd that you could pay for something 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:37.120 that you would hope you would never need, whether it 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.320 was home fire or health insurance. She planned to get 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.640 her money's worth out of it. Bell and Mad's Chicago 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:48.120 home mysteriously burned down, and they received an insurance payout. Next, 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.120 they purchased a small business, which, wouldn't you know it 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.400 also burned down, and then they used that insurance money 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:57.479 to buy a new, larger home. It was at this 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.920 point that Bell's insurance schemes took a turn for the macabre. 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.320 We mentioned that there are more than one type of insurance. Well, 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:06.200 now Bell wanted to see what kind of money she 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.520 could get off of life insurance. She and Mads took 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:13.160 in four foster children and purchased policies on all of them. 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:15.920 Within a few years, two of them had died from 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:20.440 and I quote colitis. That's essentially colon inflammation caused by 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.400 things like bacteria or food allergies or you know, poison. 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:27.360 Mads must have been at least somewhat of an accomplice 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.279 in these schemes. If he was, he should have considered 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:33.640 that Bell's greed new no bounds, because next she took 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.279 out a policy on him. The truly remarkable aspect of 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.560 this next scheme was that Bell decided her initial plan 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.560 was thinking too small. After taking out one policy on Mads, 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.560 she decided the limits weren't high enough. She took out 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:51.120 a second, higher policy, and she wasn't content for one 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.919 policy to end and the other to begin. No, she 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.599 waited until the one day that the two policies briefly overlapped, 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:02.400 and then well Mads mysteriously passed away. Bell next married 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.800 a man named Peter, who, surprise surprise, she also took 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:08.479 out a life insurance policy on. He had two young 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.240 daughters from a previous marriage. One of them died just 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.120 a week after he and Belle married, and he only 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.880 lasted a few months himself Beyond that. She claimed that 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.600 Peter died after a meat grinder fell and hit him 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:22.000 on the head. But the thing about meat grinders is 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:24.360 while they tend to be secured to a counter at 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.360 waste level, so how one happened to wind up falling 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:31.320 on Peter's head is a mystery. Bell used all of 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.280 this insurance money to buy herself a farm, and this 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:38.080 would be the final most horrific stop on her murder spree. 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.680 For this next phase of her plan, she actually put 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.240 an ad in multiple newspapers across the Midwest asking for 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:46.880 a husband to come live with her on the farm. 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:50.120 Through this process, she attracted a man from South Dakota 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:54.000 named Andrew Helgalin. Andrew traveled from his home in South 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.040 Dakota to Illinois to be with Belle. But this time 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:59.520 she didn't even wait for marriage before trying to get 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.200 money out of him. She convinced him to withdraw a 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:05.080 large amount from his savings at a local bank and 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.239 give the cash to her. And Andrew, well, he doesn't 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:10.520 seem to have been the wisest man of all time. 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.880 He did exactly as she said, and he went missing 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.400 the next day. But this time Bell might have bit 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.000 off more than she could chew is Hee. Andrew had 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:21.440 a brother who soon came looking for him. He was 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:23.680 smart enough to check with the bank, who confirmed that 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.760 Andrew had been there recently with Bell and withdrawn a 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.080 large amount of money. Belle knew that her murder spree 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:32.960 might finally be at an end. On April twenty eighth 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.959 of nineteen oh eight, the workers on Bell's farm awoke 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.679 to find the main house on fire. The house burned 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:42.200 to the ground before the fire department could arrive. Once 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.520 they did arrive, though, they found more than they ever 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:47.959 could have bargained for. Beneath the ruins in the house's basement, 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.719 they found the bodies of three children, as well as 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:55.760 a woman's decapitated corpse, they wondered if this perhaps was Bell. Later, 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.760 Andrew's brother arrived and helped the police identify Andrew's body 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:05.480 buried elsewhere on the property, and more bodies were uncovered elsewhere. Ultimately, 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:08.720 historians believe that Belle's final body count to be somewhere 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.199 between twenty to forty people. It's hard to know for sure, 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.000 given the nature of her crimes though. Oh and the 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:17.960 body of that headless woman they found in the basement, well, 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.280 it was exhumed in two thousand and seven, and the 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.839 testing showed that the body was probably someone other than Belle, 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.240 which means that she likely killed someone and cut their 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.480 head off an attempt to make the authorities think that 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.240 she had died in the fire and somehow lost her 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.040 head in the process. Belle then set fire to her 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.760 own house and fled out into the night, leaving historians 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.840 very curious as to where she might have traveled next. Nowadays, 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.880 Bell Ganess is known as the most prolific female serial 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:49.720 killer in American history, and she's also the most successful, 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:52.520 having made the modern day equivalent of about a million 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.840 dollars off of those crimes. Whether or not she ever 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:58.760 got to spend it, though, is one mystery that will 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:06.200 probably never saw. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:10.400 of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.960 or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:18.040 dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.840 in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:25.400 winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.040 and television show, and you can learn all about it 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:32.520 over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:34.000 stay curious.