Gunness was, for several decades, allegedly seen or sighted in cities and towns throughout the United States. Friends, acquaintances, and amateur detectives apparently spotted her on the streets of Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles. As late as 1931, Gunness was reported alive and living in a Mississippi town, where she supposedly owned a great deal of property and lived the life of a doyenne. Smutzer, for more than 20 years, received an average of two reports a month. She became part of American criminal folklore, a female Bluebeard.The bodies of Gunness' three children were found in the home's wreckage, but the headless adult female corpse found with them was never positively identified. Gunness' true fate is unknown; La Porte residents were divided between believing that she was killed by Lamphere and that she had faked her own death. In 1931, a woman known as "Esther Carlson" was arrested in Los Angeles for poisoning August Lindstrom for money. Two people who had known Gunness claimed to recognize her from photographs, but the identification was never proved. Carlson died while awaiting trial.
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