Belva Eleanora Gaertner (née Boosinger; September 14, 1884 – May 14, 1965) was an American woman who was acquitted of murder in a 1924 trial.

[citation needed] In 1917, she married William Gaertner, who was 20 years older and a wealthy industrialist, in Crown Point, Indiana.

Five months later, William Gaertner successfully sued to have the marriage annulled, claiming that Belva's divorce from Overbeck had not been finalized.

[1] On March 11, 1924, Belva Gaertner allegedly shot and killed her lover Walter Law, a married man with one child.

Law was found sprawled in the front seat of Gaertner's car with a bottle of gin and a gun lying beside him.

Gaertner, found later at her apartment with blood-soaked clothes on the floor, confessed that she was drunk and was driving with Law, but couldn't remember what happened.

Following William Gaertner's death on December 2, 1948, in Wilmette, Illinois, Belva moved to Pasadena, California and lived with her sister, Ethel Kraushaar.