Bloody Benders - Part Two - A Study of Strange

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Picking up in the1870s, near the end of the bloody benders
reign of terror in LaVette County, Kansas.
Things in this mystery are aboutto get messy in more ways than one.
The rest of this tale is like an abstractpainting.
The details.
The meaning is in the eye of the beholder.

(00:23):
It provokes imagination
and just might be a great wayto study the human psyche.
Or I'm just trying to find meaning
in these crazy, freakin bloody benders.
This is a study of strange.

(01:02):
Welcome to the show.
Welcome back.
I'm Michael May.
And today,I'm still joined by John M Keating,
who is with me on this strange
tale of the bloody Bender family.
The weeks fly by.
It feels like just 5 minutes ago.
Doesn't it? Does it?
I think more like a minuteand a half, effortlessly.

(01:23):
Cool.
So thank you,
everybody, for your support of the showand listening to the show.
I am always having an amazing timedoing this
and the best thing to do to supportis just to subscribe, right and review
and check out our website,a study of strange XCOM
for Patriot and episodes and anything elseyou might be interested in.
So I'm going to we're going to jumpright into it.

(01:44):
We're goingwe're continuing the story right away.
Where we left off is the Benders a family,maybe not family,
are leaving a trail of badfirst impressions around LA County, Texas.
That might be the best understanding,right? Yes.
I was leaving bad first.
Bad, bad, first impressions everywhere.
And it was. Where you find it. Yes.

(02:06):
And they many, many a traveler are going
missing in the area and some deadbodies have been found that no one is.
No one is casting suspicion on the bendersquite yet.
We're in like 1872 ish, though.
I have jumped around the timea little bit.
And John, you actually pointed out areally good thing that I'll clarify here.
At the beginning,
John was like, I don't know if youactually said how they killed people. So.

(02:30):
Very good point.
The the common story of the bendersis that they're and please listen to part
one so you can catch some of these detailsif you haven't already.
But there's a canvas in the cabinthat separates the front room,
which is where there were some goodsthat they would sell a table to eat at,
where people could stay the nightand the back area
with a couple of straw mattresseswhere the Bender family would live

(02:53):
and the canvas, it was right
up against one of the chairsor benches at the table.
It was the seat of honor at that.
Yes, it's a.
Set of seat of honor is a great way to.
Name that. Yes.
Yeah.
And again, folklore here is thatthey would it usually you hear it
as Kate would seduce or flirtor make people calm down

(03:13):
and she would get them to sit withtheir head right up against the canvas.
And as they're relaxed and unassumingor being fed food and getting comfortable,
someone would sneak up behind themon the other side of the canvas
with a hammer and Wakeham
hit them on the head and then immediatelyit's said a lot of times as well
that Kate,
because a lot of them had their throatscut, Kate would then cut their throat

(03:35):
and they might be dumped into the cellarto bleed out and die.
Or they might. Just be trappedin. The trapdoor.
They make it sound.
Some of the reports make it sound likeit was like a mechanical.
Like a drop opened. And it was like.
Like Sweeney Todd.
Yeah, it's.
I even saw a movie where there's.
There is a door rightunderneath the table.
So they would move the tableand then just dump the body.

(03:55):
It's like, no, it was in the backunder a mattress and it's not a trapdoor.
It's just a, you know, thing.
Yes. Sorry.
There's an interesting thing
about about the puttingthe head next to the canvas that might
lend a lot of credibility to thethis is how they did it.
That was a commonly used techniquein carnivals

(04:16):
where they would have like the wrestlerchallenged someone from the audience.
Yeah.
And they would, you know,
they would have someone that knewhow to wrestle,
that knew how to hurt people, basically.
And, you know,
there was always the drunk people,I can take them, blah, blah, blah.
And yet, alas,so many minutes with the person.
But if the person was too goodand got the better of the wrestler,

(04:37):
so they didn't lose money.
Yeah, there was always someone behind
the curtain,a blackjack with, like, a slap.
Joe and the wrestler would maneuver
the other person, the personfrom the crowd towards the curtain, boom.
And he whack them with thatand knock them out.
And then they.
That isso there is there is precedent for that.

(04:59):
That's interesting. Yes.
Yes, that's really interesting.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
That was an awful
like because because that's where like prowrestling evolved out of was.
Yes. Yes.
And because of that, you know. Yeah.
Yeah. That brings.
I was going to say thatactually brings up an interesting theory
because we don't know the benders pastbefore they showed up.

(05:21):
And you know.
And there's a lot of like term like thereis a lot of carnival stuff in that air
in that.
Yeah. Area of the country.
Yeah. Yeah. At those times. Absolutely.
Oh, cool. That is awesome.
So yeah. So we will get into that.
Some of some of my owntheorizing about the Benders deals
with that, that canvas and that method of,of killing people as well.

(05:43):
So we're going to get to thattowards the end of this, which is already
that is that is cooland is a really good, really good thought.
So where we left off, Dr.
William York was searching for his missingfriend, George longer and longer,
his 18 month old daughter.
And then Dr. York went missing.
And his brother, Alexander,the former state senator,

(06:03):
gets another York brother, Edward,
to come and help search for what happenedto their missing brother, Dr.
York.
Now, EdwardYork was a bit of a wannabe cowboy.
He was brash.
This is all my own description of him.
This is not nobody saying this.
He's brash, cocky.
He definitely cared for his brothers andwanted to find out what happened to to Dr.

(06:24):
York.
But he definitely seems a bitkind of like trigger
happy again, just a figure of speech.
And I mean, he was shooting people,but he seems a bit trigger happy
and he becomes the family'smain guy on the ground investigating.
And they get a group of peopleformed around the town
and townships to help look.
And they were actually able to trace Dr.

(06:45):
York's movements pretty clearlybecause Dr.
York was looking for his missing friends.
So he was talking to everybody.
So when when the group searching for himis now going around,
like,have you seen a doctor, William York?
They were like, Yeah, he was hereasking me about this George Long fella.
So there is a theythey were able to trace where he went,
who we talked to, even a house he stayedat for the night, not the vendors.

(07:08):
And they heard a story about
a guy named James Roach in Landau, Kansas.
James Roach was a hotel owner,
and Roach was worried when he heard thatthe York Brothers were out
looking for their missing brother,that they would come to him
and suspect him because apparently
James Roach was a suspectand a lot of strange disappearance

(07:29):
cases or thieveryor other strange rumors about town
people thought Roach was behind itand had like a gang of
nut vigilantes, a gang of thievesor whoever that, like, worked for him.
So when the York Brothers
showed up in his town, he was like,Oh, shit, they're coming for me.
So sure enough, Young and Ed York

(07:50):
shows up at the hotel and threatens Roach.
And I thinkeven, like, pulled a gun on him.
And it's like yelling and threatening himand blaming him for the disappearance
and other disappearancesand all this kind of stuff.
Thankfully, Alexander was there.
The former senator
who seemed to be the he was the headon the shoulders of this group.
He calm things downand he ended up questioning James Roach

(08:12):
and determinedthat Roach had nothing to do with it.
And so so that was Roachgot very lucky because there is
there's always a chance for mob justicein these parts at that time.
Oh, 100%. Yeah.
And also too, if he was, which I'msure he was doing a lot of shady stuff,
he doesn't want the heat.
He no, he doesn't want the heat.
And this is this is why I really wantto know more about James Roach

(08:34):
if anybody knows anything about this guyemailed me a study of strange at gmail.com
because it's so interestingbecause what I'm reading I'm
focused on the bendersso I'm not going down that rabbit hole.
But he he was worried.
Everybody suspected him for all sortsof stuff, which I'm like, why, why?
Why are people. Suspicious of youfor all this?
He obviously was doing some checks.
And then he wrote to the governorfor help with law enforcement,

(08:57):
which is interestingbecause if he is and shady stuff,
but he was like, we need more law.
Like, I'm scared. I'mtired of being a suspect in everything.
Please send law enforcementto help out in the area.
So it's just an interestinglittle little anecdote there.
Or maybe he was just a little weird
and everybody was just like he was an easygo to that gave absolutely nothing.
You know.
Now now a local guynamed Thomas Beers, who, as far as I can

(09:20):
tell, did not have any trainingfor being a detective
or law enforcement officer,but he became a private detective
and he was one of the main investigatorson the case.
And another local officialI mentioned in part one, Leroy
Dick, becomes a partof this group of investigators as well,
because he is sort of like a cityor county or township official.

(09:40):
He carries some some
he wasn't like a law enforcement officer,
but he carries some authorityaround town and
Leroy Dick,I'll mention this real, real quick, too.
Leroy Dick is actually a very importanthistorical figure
when it comes to the Benders,because a lot of the stories
we have about them are informationcome from Leroy Dick.

(10:02):
And the decades after the benderswere found out and disappeared,
he was interviewed a lot.
I think he may have even writtena book or two.
And he he definitely embellished
his role in things as one does, I guess.
But he did play an important rolein sort of a lot of the details
we know about the bendersbeing shared down through the generations.

(10:24):
Now, as an example of what Leroy Dickbrought to the case, he's
actually the first person to connectthe benders as persons of interest.
Not suspects yet, but persons of interest.
This comes upbecause as the search for Dr.
York is happening,
Lee addict remembers the theft charges,which I mentioned in part
one with the two ladies that moved infrom Germany and the jewelry box

(10:47):
and the cashier's checks went missing.
LeroyDick was told at the time about that,
but there was nothing he could do becausethere was no evidence they took it.
So he couldn't puta, you know, a vigilante group together,
whatever they called him at the time,to go out and actually investigate a.
Posse, a. Posse.
And so he remembers this.
He shares this information with the Yorksand Ed York actually knew who

(11:10):
Kate Bender was because he had seenher advertisements for her, like,
I can cure blindness and dumb witnessand whatever else she was at best.
Don't forget the. Fits. Don't forget fits.
And Ed actually was like that.
That all seems like hooey.
But he remembered the nameand was able to piece that together.
So this group wisely and I'm just going

(11:30):
to give Alexander the credit,but it's an assumption
they decide to go visit the benders,but they're not going to go being like
they don't want the bendersto think that they're persons of interest.
So they decide to go by the bendersto stock up on supplies.
And also they'relooking for their brother.
So they are going to ask about him justbecause he probably went down the trail.

(11:52):
But they're not going to give any sort of
inklingthat they may be thinking of the benders.
And that is where our next scene comes in.
John So yeah, we're we're going to doa dramatization here of what happened
between the York Boys and their group
investigating this and the Benders.
And a lot of this is actually takenfrom accounts from the York Brothers.

(12:15):
So some of this language is takenright from them.
So that's fine.
All right. You ready?
Yes. Which who am I doing?
Oh, that. Is a good question.
You want to just dove in?
Let's see who.
Excuse, maybe. Alexander.
Yeah. Okay.
How do you do? Kate and Gephardt?
Yeah, I do. Kate and Gephardt.
Okay, well,that means I have to do my laugh.
All right.

(12:35):
You laugh.
Yes. Yes.
All right, here we go.
So it's the Bender cabinone day, and Alexander York,
his younger brother, Ed, Detective Beersand others right up to the cabin.
They open the front door and walk insidethemselves to get out of a light rain.
Inside the cabin, they find John Gephardtsitting and reading a Bible.
He introduces himself but doesn't attemptto help the alleged customers.

(12:58):
Suddenly, Kate appearsfrom behind the canvas curtain.
Can I help you?
I beg your pardon?
You're Miss Kate Bender? Yes.
Kate not.
I'm Alexander York.
I'm sure you've heard that.
My dear brother, Dr.
WilliamYork, went missing around these parts.
We're looking for any cluesabout what may have happened to.
Yes, of course.

(13:18):
He stopped here for groceries.
I wish you would find outif he is alive or dead.
He was a very nice man.
I can not imagine the distress.
Yes, it has caused distress for notjust our family, but everyone who knew.
He left here without worry.
Only only spoke to him a few minutes.
Isn't that right,John? Yeah, that's right.

(13:40):
It's a big mystery.
I wish you well in your search.
I got shot at near where they foundthe dead body in Drum Creek.
I could show you if you'd like.
Kate gives Gephardt. That was Gephardt.
If good, Kate gives Gephardt a lookthat says, what the hell are you doing?
Then she smiles at Alexander.
Yes, I suppose that could be helpful.
Gephardt jumps up and leadsthe men out of the cabin.

(14:02):
But Kate stopsAlexander and whispers to him,
If you come back alone without your men,I will have an answer about your brother.
You're aware of my gifts? Yes.
Come next week alone.
Alexander politely smiles
and walks outside to his men.
Turned to.

(14:25):
I wouldn't do it, Alexander.
I wouldn't go back. No, no.
Any timesomeone specifies alone that much.
Yes, yes, indeed.
So the brothers
left with Gephardt.
Apparently,they were really annoyed with them
when they went to go to the area wherethey found the dead body by the creek.
Apparently they were just.
That seems logical.

(14:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
And the the whole group
I don't know if the whole group,but they definitely definitely
the York Brothersbecause they were the ones
that actuallyhad the most influence on this group.
But they suspected the bendersthat that meeting was like, yeah, yeah,
that was going on here.
That almost confirmed it for them. Yeah.

(15:07):
So they decide to come up with a planagain.
I think Alexander's in charge of this.
I think he wisely thinks this through.
He decides that they shouldbasically come up with a meeting.
And I don't know if he decides it,but I know he's part of the thinking.
We can't just show up and claimthat they killed all these people,
or especially Dr. York.

(15:28):
So we got to do something toto kind of catch them.
So this ruse is createdwhere there's going to be a town meeting
about elections, apparently,but they are going to bring up topics of
all the missing people, all the thievery,all the missing people in the area.
And they're going to put forward a motionto search
all the cabins in the area,not just the benders.

(15:49):
It's not about them.They're not suspected.
But we got to search all the cabinsto figure this out.
And Alexander helpedmake this even more formal.
He actually put together a petitionto the governor for help to catch
all these bandits, because they're tryingto make it sound like it's not a family.
It's a bunch of bandits out there.
Well, you want to scare them off?No, exactly.
Keep them in the house. Yes, absolutely.

(16:12):
So the governor actually signed this thing
to give 500 bucks per head of banded cut.
And so that makes it more official.
Now, legend has it, and I believe itbecause it seems to be mentioned a lot
that at least PA and John
Gephardt were at this town meeting.
So they're hearing thisand they're aware of the searches

(16:34):
and the vendorsactually see the writing on the walls
and they decideto get the heck out of Dodge, so to speak.
So there's a lot of guessing, legendand other nonsense in regards
to what happens nextwith the vendors specifically.
But we actually know more than I everrealized reading about this story.
So on April 4th, 1873,the Benders went to a train station

(16:56):
and sayer settlementnot too far from them,
but like farther away from other trainstations.
The best that I can tell anyway.
PA Bender got into an argumentwith a ticket agent.
They, you know,
so they're standing out already
and leaving their mark and impressionswith the people
and they got tickets to Humboldt andthen they got to different connections.
So some of them are going to go into Texas
and others are going to go into Missouri.

(17:18):
They left there at 9:03 p.m.
that night.
Ma and PA were the onesthat were going to continue to Missouri.
John Gephardtand Kate would go into Texas.
They all had a layover stop
because I don't think you say layoverwith trains later.
Yeah, yeah.
They'll stop.
They'll stop for a little while.
Continue where they were seen

(17:39):
actually having breakfast at a hotel nearthe train station.
And tonight is interestingbecause it's actually
north of LeBec,where their cabin was in a bit.
But then they're also nowKate and John are now going to go south,
so they're going to cut back through.
And I was actually trying to figure out,
like,where the train routes were at the time.
And I could not.
So I don't I don't know if they did thatbecause they had to that connect

(18:02):
to go south or if they did thatjust to hopefully put people.
Off the train, like backtrack.Right? Yeah.
So I don't know if they thought itthrough that much or not.
It kind of depends on the routesand the trains at the time
and I just could notfind enough information.
So Kate and Gephardt eventually
make their way to Denison, Texas,which is known as an area
where a lot of people headed to the west,the American West or into Mexico stop.

(18:26):
And it is near the north Texas border,sort of outside of Dallas.
So May comes around.
That was in April.
So almost a month goes by and a farmhand
named Billy Toole,who I mentioned in in part one, the scene
I kind of read from the book in partone talks about Billy Toll.
He's a farmhand and he's rounding upcattle that got out during a storm

(18:49):
and his route took him on the paththat led to the Bender cabin.
And he wasn't planning to stop there.
It was a plan to talk to him,but he heard an animal
like what sounded like a lame animalmaking noise.
And he noticed that no one was comingout of the cabin to help the animal.
So he went over to the to the corral,
their little stablesthey had built in the property
and found a pigthat was like dying and hungry.

(19:12):
And he said the pig.
And then inside the stables,it was smelled really bad.
It was putrid, putrid smell.
And it's hard to see and full of flies.
And there was a dead calf in there.
The stands out to Billy Toll.
It's like somethingsomething isn't right here.
So he heads over to the cabin,

(19:33):
knocks on the door,
the door opensand it is void of life except for flies.
And it also had a very similar smellto the dead calf
from the stable,also coming from the cabin.
So Billy told high tales that out of therehe doesn't like go searching.
He doesn't start touching everything.
He leaves.

(19:53):
But he tells everybodythat the benders are gone and they left
and there's dead animalsand some smells bad in the cabin.
Like there were
some real estate agents on the trailthat he like, stopped and told.
And they even went by the cabin themselvesand looked.
And and soby the time he kind of makes it into town,
Leroy Decker,the city official, has already heard that
Billy told us, found out
the benders aren't there, apparently,because word spreads fast, even without.

(20:16):
A faster than you can move. Yeah.
And so Leroy gets informationthat the Benders must have abandoned
the cap, the cabin.
So Dick gets the York Brothers,the group together.
They head out the next day to the Bendercabin, and you all can listen to part one.
My little summationof when they show up to the cabin
and they go out in the basementand they smell something,
and they're like, We're going to haveto move the cabin to search the cellar.

(20:39):
And there's probably a dead bodyunder there.
So they they have to move the cabin,literally move the whole cabin,
and they have to break apart
the stone flooring that was put ininto like the little cellar.
And they think there's a dead bodyunder here.
There has to be because there's bloodin the soil, there's blood on the stone.
And while they're moving the cabinand doing this initial search,

(21:02):
Leroy Dickfound three hammers of differing sizes
all underneath thestove, which is very strange.
Someone also found a knife
in hidden in a clock,which is also very strange.
The following daythere's an abandoned wagon that was found
and it turns out that it was the benderwagon.

(21:24):
So people are know that the bindersaren't in the cabin.
There's a wagon abandoned nearby.
They got out of here beforewe had a chance to actually catch them
doing what they likely didto missing people, or at least Dr.
York.
And if you know anything about humannature, John, the entertainment
at the time, there's no there'sno YouTube back then there's no tick tock.

(21:47):
If you hear there's likely been murdersat a cabin, you're going to you're going
to get rid of whatever you do in that dayand go on down there to check it out.
That's a night out.
Yeah, that's.
Yeah. Get the kids,gather up, get the kids.
And they do there's there's photosof the property and there are children
because that is human natureand people start showing up to search.

(22:08):
Luckily they're still searching.So I think people show up just to see.
But then they're like, Oh, volunteer,you need help dig.
And so like people volunteerand they help to, to search it out
and they decide it is Leroy DickThat's what it was.
Leroy Dick decided to divideeverybody, buddy, up into three teams.
So one team is going to go searchJohn Gephardt's land down the road,
sort of narrow strip.

(22:29):
One team is going to search the groundunderneath the stone in the cellar.
One team is going to excavatethe stable corral area
and they're doing thatand there's bad smells.
Billy Toll apparently threw up when he wasdigging in like the cellar area
because the smell of itno body, though, is found.
No one findsanybody's just blood and stuff.

(22:51):
And I think it's Ed
York who may have been the first personto notice that the soil in the orchard,
some of it's disturbed,some of it's like loose soil.
So they take a rod and they decidethey're going to jam
it in the groundwherever there's loose soil.
And if it hits something,
that's where they're going to digto see if there's a body.
So sure enough, they hit somethingright away when they do this

(23:14):
and they start digging
and about four feet down,the first person they find that day is Dr.
William York is is.
Dead because he was the most recent.
It was the most recent. Yeah.
And there's a claim I don't know if it'strue that his head was cut entirely off.
I don't know if that's true.
There definitely was a cut on his throatand also blunt force trauma to the head,

(23:35):
which matches the other bodiesthat have been found prior to this
and all the theoriesabout how they killed people.
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thank you. Yep.
Now, allegedly, the size of the woundmatches one of the hammers
that they found.
Those hammers you can actually go visit.
To this day, they're in the Cherry ValeHistorical Society Museum in Cherry
Vale, Kansas.
They are still there, as well as the knifethat they found as well.

(25:03):
That may have been a knifethey used to get people.
So yeah, check that out, everybody.
I said that
like I actually do suggestchecking that out if you're in the area.
I said that like likehow crazy would you be to check that out?
I mean.
That'snot that if I was in Kansas and checking.
Absolutely.
But there were more graves,at least five that they could see.

(25:23):
They found a man named Henry McKenzie,William McCarty, Benjamin Brown,
and then George Loncarand his 18 month old daughter.
They were kind ofshe was buried at his feet.
This suspicion with the daughtersthat she was buried alive.
Oh, now seven total bodies were uncoveredfrom the orchard.
One in the well.

(25:44):
A guy named Jimmy JohnnyBoyle was found in the well sometime.
He's credited in articles as John Geary.
Regardless,they found a poor soul in the well.
A doctor was on site doctor cables,and he's the one
that actually came up with this M.O.,this modus operandi for the benders,
the stuff that has become folkloreand legend of the canvas and everything.

(26:07):
I actually don't think he even mentionedthe canvas that just people think of that
he more said someone would sneak upbehind the person,
hit him, probably hit him multiple times.
It's not like one hit.
It's hit him multiple times and they wouldalso sometimes cut the neck as well.
So it's a brutal, brutal death.

(26:28):
This is not a clean act by any means.
Now, this law has grown with time.
People say Kate is behind it.
She's the brains.
She would cut the neckand people would hit them on the head.
We don't know that there is nothingthere's no evidence
anywhere that suggests Kate did one thing,someone else did another.

(26:49):
The only evidence is
people would go to the cabinand they would die under these methods.
We don't know where they were sitting.
We don't know who didwhat could have been all we don't know.
So here's here's my question.
While we're on this murder
modus operandi process,whatever you want to call it, John.
So I mentionedin part one kind of my theorizing

(27:11):
is that the common story of a person'shead being against the canvas,
I actually don't think that's true.
Your comment about the the
the wrestlers and stuff actually makes methink of yeah in the carnival actually
make gives me more questionit makes me question my own.
It was a practice it was
it was definitely a practiceto knock someone out that way.

(27:33):
Yeah.
Well, here's my here's my issue with it
because it actually does make sensebecause it helps hide you.
I never want to hide sound, really,but it definitely
you definitely sneak upto somebody like that. But
if you're hitting somebody on the head,there's likely going to be blood.
And I just don't thinkyou want to stain the canvas
that's now been hanging in your cabinfor three years.

(27:55):
When you're trying to convince
other people to stopand have lunch or dinner, stay the night.
I just I don't think that's a movethat anybody would do.
Even a dirty, dirty family like this also.
Was what I wondered too, though, was
was the intent of the hammerto kill them or to knock them out.
I think it's probably to knock them outbecause everybody wants.

(28:17):
It, right?
Yeah. But so,
so, so that could be a case of wherethere wasn't blood.
Yeah.
From the head wound.
But I just you can't control that.
But maybe they don't, they didn't care.
Maybe they weren't trying to control it.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm sure, I'm sure this canvas,
if it was white, was not like,you know, perfect for pristine.

(28:40):
Really? Yeah, that's a good point.
That is a good point.
It's probably brown and faded and again.
Right. And it's very dimly lit in there.Yeah.
And one person did say it was a redcurtain at one point, so maybe that.
Would be more sense.Yeah that would be that.
Yeah.
And, but my other, my other thought on it,the reason I question that is
don't you also you may cut it open,you may tear it by doing that all these.

(29:02):
Times,but maybe it wasn't the same canvas.
Oh yeah. Every time.
Yeah. All right.
Fine. They had a supply
there.
They should have gotten into the canvasbusiness.
That's what they. Should.And that was the move.
That was the route they may have,but that was the canvas.
Yes, indeed.
But I was gigglingall the was all that money.

(29:23):
It's all this money and this money.
Man, he would leave townfrom time to time to do stuff.
That's probably what he was doing.
Yeah, exactly. He was in the canvas game.
No, but those are my issueswith that common theory that like
they're hitting people through the canvasis I worry about blood,
I worry about ripping it.
And it's like you don't have to have thatto sneak up to somebody

(29:44):
becauseespecially if somebody is getting relaxed
or having a cup of coffee,they're out of the rain.
They're chillin and chattingwith Jon and Kate.
Not my partner,apparently, just not very social.
But it's like you get comfortable,you walk up on somebody
and smack them on the head.
So, you know,and if they're ready and they're prepared
and they communicate, they're a team,
a good team of serial killers,and they're practiced and. Yes.

(30:06):
Skilled in what they do. They have athey have a process.
They have a process down.
But here's here's a
John here's a little tale of human nature
that is shows how terrible we are.
We are we'rejust we're we're all the horrible. Yeah.
And there are laws to helpsort of mitigate mob rule and mob law.

(30:29):
And it can be a lot.
It could be a big problem.
And something happenedwhen all these people were
were digging up these bodiesand searching the land.
Is that a neighbor?
The nearest neighborand another German immigrant,
a guy named Rudolph Brockman, was aroundthere as well,
because everybody from from the areashanging out at the the old bender place.

(30:51):
Yeah. What else?
And so people are like,oh my God, look at the benders dead.
They're terrible people.
Hey, Rudolph Brotman is kind of nice
to the Bendersand he's also German, so he was in on it.
So that's all they needed to hang Brockmanin the rafters of the cabin.
So they hang Brockmanright before he's about to die.

(31:12):
They cut him down and they tell himhe needs to confess, confess
to his sins, confessthat he helped the benders.
He killed all these people.
He didn't confess because he didn'thave anything to do with it.
So they hang him again
and this time he passes outand they actually pronounce him dead.
Cut them down.
Later, though, he actually wakes up.
He did not die.
So he wakes up.
He was only mostly dead.

(31:32):
He was.
Mostly dead.
And he he just gets out of there.
And the story is that he kind of got upand stumbled is probably delirious
and just walks.And at this point, it's the nighttime.
And he stumbles on his wayback down the trail, back to his place.
And from what I can tell,no one even helped him.
No one helped him up, nothing.
And that is just such a horrendous story.

(31:57):
Yeah.
But that's part.
So like, it's so of the time.
All of the time I could see it happeningnow in certain areas it's just.
Yeah.
That, that whole you're guiltyby association. Yep.
Everyone get them. And you see it.
I mean, look, we don't change.We're humans, we don't change.
You still see it today?
We just have we just have certain thingsin place to help stop that.

(32:19):
But but those kind of thingscan and do happen.
And the reason this story is importantis just because it is interesting.
It is interesting, too,to look at human nature in human behavior.
But also people immediately suspectedthat the benders had accomplices.
And when I first read that, I was like,I don't think so.
They're killing all these people.
I think that's just too riskyto have people know.

(32:40):
And then I was like, Okay,but they have to sell everything they get.
Like they had to sell horses,
sell carriages,like whatever people are leaving behind.
So they very,very well might have had accomplices.
But I think in Hocking Goods,I don't think in a.
Complex sense. Yeah, they needed a fence.
And there are storiesthat John Gephardt would leave and leave

(33:01):
for long periods of time,like he would be gone for days or weeks.
He wasn't just running into townfor for supplies.
So I think John would take stuff
and had people or accomplices or fences,whatever
you want to call them, to be ableto sell goods in other places.
And again,
they are not far from
the Oklahoma Territory at the timewhere people could kind of disappear.

(33:22):
And so it's just a thought because I dothink it is important to think about that.
Maybe this roach guy had something to do.
Yeah, maybe roach. Yeah.
Well, there are
there are some peoplewe're going to talk about
very shortly herewhen they were on the lam
that could have been associatedwith them selling goods.
I wrote down this little note.
So Bonnie and Clyde, their famousafter they were were shot in the Ford

(33:47):
and it came through townand they were telling the car
people would come up and cut hair offBonnie and cut pieces of clothing off
Clyde and get bloody bulletsand glass from the car and
just mobs of people taking stuff.
And and it is so macabreand we think of it as very weird,
but people did that.

(34:07):
And the same thing happenswith the Bender cabin
as soon as this stuff happens, they startfinding bodies, people are taking things.
So there is stuff out therethat is from people stealing stuff
from the Bender cabinand even the pictures
there are pictures from the search
and you'll seelike paneling is missing from the cabin.
That'snot because the cabin had holes in it.
People had already taken wood panelingoff the cabin to keep as as keepsakes.

(34:32):
Yeah, very interesting.
Very interesting indeed.
And also, you get con men,especially back then, too,
because then as soon as people are takingstuff, you get people showing up.
It's like, I have a fork.
This was a Bender's fork,and it's like that.
You brought it from homeand they're selling it to tourists.
And along those lines to the trains
started having more rides into the areabecause a tourist.

(34:53):
So they opened it up for more touriststo come by and see the Bender property
press picks this up
they're starting to share storiesand they're not confirming anything.
They're writing, they're taking,they're finding other news articles
and using that to confirm their newsstories.
Yeah, word.
Spreads.
Legend grows super fast and within months.
This is a national storyline.

(35:15):
This is also where you start to get thewe talked about it.
It may have been in part oneor in the early part of this part, but
the description of the bendersis never the same.
Right? Right.
There's a fence. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.
I was.
I say, I've seen some that were like,you know, the father was very ugly
or the Wal Mart vendor was very ugly.

(35:36):
Yeah.
Not, you know, and Kateonly thought of herself and of,
like all of ussomehow like these this mysterious family
that people barely didn'teven know existed.
Everybody knew the intricaciesof their personalities and stuff. Yes.
And it's truebecause like I said in the in part one,
Paul was known to be a hairydude, had a big beard.

(35:59):
The the famous wordengraving of the family.
He's cleanly shaven.
And Kate, people say she's fat and otherpeople say she's beautiful and skinny
and other people say she had blond hairand others say brown hair.
And so it's like all these differentdescriptions.
And unfortunately,because of the time they lived in,
we don't have any confirmed photographsof any of them.
We actually don't knowwhat they looked like.

(36:20):
We don't we have no idea.
We can piece together some generalities,but we do not know what they look like.
And that's even from people in townthat knew them and we know
they knew them and even they willdescribe them differently.
Yeah.
So the persistent thought was thatKate was the brains behind the operation.
This starts becoming moreof a universality in the story.

(36:41):
At the time when all the press is writing,
they say that she's the onethat would seduce people and get a man.
And she came up with the plan to hit themon the head and then cut the throat.
We don't have any confirmationof any of that.
It's like we don't know how they operated.
We don't know if she was the brainsbehind the operation.
She was definitely more socialand friendly sometimes to people in town.

(37:01):
But that doesn't meanthat she was the brains
behind the operation, but that this iswhere all those stories start is all
these newspapers just making stuff up?
Just say it was clickbait of the time.
Yes, everything was based on rumors and.
Yep, yeah, assumptions. Exactly.
And so Alexander York at this time,

(37:22):
he again, he's ex-senatorvery powerful in Kansas.
He actually issues, warrants or tries toI think he runs for district attorney
so he can issue warrants because, again,there's thoughts that there's accomplices.
So he wants to arrest people and they dothey actually arrest a lot of people.
Luckily,none of those people ever go to trial.

(37:43):
There's not enough evidence for anything,but they definitely are like guilty
by associationand they're just arresting people now
on the lam,if you remember the binder separated
by parliament in Missouri,Kate and John Gephardt went south.
And we know
actually some of the movementsat this time,

(38:04):
the younger two bought carriages,bought guns.
Kate began wearing men's clothing to hide.
They went through Indian territoryin present day Oklahoma.
They were also seen using a ferryby a guy named Benjamin
Colbert or Coal Bear.
Probably probably relatedto Stephen Colbert, I would imagine.
Yeah. Probably in front. Of a bank. Yeah.

(38:24):
And that was the guy that operatedthe ferry.
And in Denison, Texas,
where they eventuallysettled down for a bit,
this is where Mom Paulactually circled around and joined up.
So they had a plan to meet up in Denisonand they they in fact did.
And they decide to make a planto keep moving.
They got to move around.
This is still before
they had found the abandoned.

(38:46):
So the benders have a head startso they've already separated
and met up in this time and they meet upwith a man named Frank McPherson.
And Frank is a criminaland he likely knew the benders
from potentially like hawking stolen goodsmaybe how he knew them.
Right.
I we do not know if he knewthe benders killed people.

(39:08):
We just think he's he's another criminaland they're fugitives and he's
always a fugitive.
So they're going to help each other out.
Meanwhile, it's like a TV show.
Meanwhile.
Back in LA County,
Alex, the ranch bank of the ranch,Alexander, Detective Beers, Leroy Dick,
all these people are are starting to piecetogether happenings

(39:31):
of the bendersafter they find the cabin and.
It doesn't take long for them
to actually find the informationabout them
taking the trains and heading out of town.
So they did good old fashioneddetective work
on their legs, on their horses,going around, talking to people
and find the evidence that they goton these these specific trains.
They went on these specific routes.
There were witnesses that saw himhaving breakfast, all that kind of stuff.

(39:53):
So they're doing a good jobof hunting him down.
But again, they're a month behind
and a month behind in those daysis a very long time.
The governor of Kansas starts
announcing rewardsas much as he can legally do.
He starts offering rewards on the vendors.
And there's really interesting
you can actually read the announcementlike the proclamations from the governors.

(40:14):
Those are still online.They're really interesting,
including the descriptions of
the vendors as, again, no one'scalling them by the right information.
Right.
Like as an example, Mrs.
Bender is called 50 years of age,rather heavyset, blue eyes, brown hair,
German speaks broken English like there'sso many different descriptions.

(40:34):
Amazing.
So the benders make it toa place called Red River Station,
which is a frontier town.
And this is after they were in Denison
and they found out that no one reallycared that they were fugitives there.
No one ask any questions.
It's a frontier town.
No one no one wants. No, no, no. Yeah.
No one asked questions there. Yeah.
And John Gephardt apparently doesn'teven hide the that their benders like

(40:58):
even introduces themas benders in one of the stores in town.
And they end up meeting up with a guynamed Missouri Bill.
And he's Frank MacPherson'sbrother is William McPherson,
but he goes by Missouri Bill and MissouriBill is very influential in the region.
He he even found outthrough his connections

(41:18):
that there were detectives in the areasearching for the benders.
So Bill decides to help the benders.
He goes into townto meet up with the detectives
because he's the well-to-do man in townthat knows everybody.
So they come to him for questionsand he kind of plays along.
It's like, oh, let me let me see whatI can find out for you, Mr.
Detectives, I will ask around and seeif anybody knows anything, even

(41:40):
though he knows exactly where the benders,camping or camping out nearby.
So he puts them off the scent.
This is also
around a period of time where theybecause they're constantly moving.
So it's actually kind of hardto think about their travels at this time,
but they're constantly moving.
They travel up the Wichita River
and they stay with a cousin overthe McPherson's name, Floyd Slip.

(42:02):
I keep wanting to call them Floyd Shrimp,but it's Floyd Slip
and a man named Sam Emeric,who was also kind of an outlaw
and moving around, he also stayed thereat the same time, the benders for that.
So he got to know them.
And a lot of the details we haveabout the benders because of this guy,
Sam, Mary and the search for the bendersin this is a period of time.

(42:25):
I think it'sSam Merrick runs into the benders,
I think over a period of two,two and a half years, like it's 1875.
The last time he sees them,and it was 1873 when they left.
So this is taking a lot of time,investigations, time.
Add those things together.
Money got to have money,but it's taking so long

(42:45):
that it's starting to wear downthe resources to investigate the benders.
And even Alexander York,who was putting a lot of his own strength
and might behind the investigation,tells Beers and Dick
and everybody else investigatingis time to stop.
So the investigationdies down a little bit.
However, there was a
very close call and it detectivesreally missed out on a thing.

(43:08):
And it's a great scenethat I could see in a movie.
So in a placeright outside of Henrietta, Texas,
a detective was in townlooking for the benders.
And I actually tracked him again, doing
a very good job of detective ing back,then tracked him to this area.
He's in town.
Bill McPherson again gets wordthat there's a detective in town.

(43:30):
He does the same thingwhere he's going to go and lie
and say he's going to helpand doesn't really do anything.
John Gephardt is like,I want to see this detective.
So excuse, wait, let me do that better.
John Gephardt says,I want to see this detective.
He was
goingto keep it authentic to my impression.

(43:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got to keep it. Yeah.
So John Gephardt goes into town, meets upwith Bill MacPherson and Big Fierce.
It's like, what the hell are you doing?
The detective is I just talked to him.
He's rightover there in the general store.
And John Gephardt's like, Oh,they're going to go talk to you.
So John Gephardt goes intothe general store and stands right
behind the detective as the detectiveslike in line buying stuff,

(44:12):
because Gephardt's like, he'snot going to recognize me.
I'm alone. He'slooking for a group of people.
He's not going to know what I look like.
So sure enough, Benderwas right behind the detective
and I think they even conversed and talkedand the detective had no clue.
No clue. And how do you get.
They could have gotten him right thenand there and they did it.
So Sam Merrick, who againkept running into the benders

(44:35):
because they're in the same circlesof fugitives, he last time he saw them
was at a camp further west in 1875,and Merrick was soon arrested.
And he was arrested,I want to say, in the Midwest,
I didn't write down where he was arrested,but it wasn't out west.
He was arrested somewhere else.
And investigators realizedhe saw the binders
and he actually starts divulgingmost of the information we have

(44:58):
about where they went, how they went,Bill McPherson, Frank McPherson,
all this kind of stuff,because it's thought
that Merrick knew they were fugitives,but he himself was an outlaw.
It's not that he didn't knowthey killed everybody.
He wasn't aware of it.
So the suspicion there, because all of hisstories actually make sense, it's
not just an outlaw being like,oh, you caught me.

(45:20):
I'll make up storiesabout other fugitives.
All of them really make senseaccording to other witness testimony,
things they learn from the McPherson's.
And it might be because he found outthey killed all these these people.
And he was like, well, wait,you know, a little bit of morals.
I have is.
You don't do that.
That's whatthat's too far. They've gone. Yeah. Yeah.
And that's Rob and Everett. Yeah.
And that's an assumption.

(45:40):
But, but I think it's a goodassumption, so we'll see.
And that's when the benders disappeared.
There are many, many stories that I'mnot going to waste everybody's time
with of the benders being other placesbecause they're likely all fake.
Everybody's great, greatgrandfather has a story about the benders.

(46:01):
There's people claim to be the bendersthat were in Nebraska.
There's a report of a woman
dying in Californiathat confessed to being Kate Bender.
And the most famous storythat I will mention it,
because it actually ties to a lot of whatwe think we know about the Benders,
is a woman named Frances McCann.
She had I think she lived in Kansasshe had a housekeeper,

(46:22):
a woman that helped her aroundthe house named Sarah Elizabeth Davis.
And SarahElizabeth Davis was a single mother.
And one night, Frances McCann.
And I'm butchering this tale a little bitjust for time's sake.
But she had a dreamthat connected in her dream.
Connected the woman at her house,Sarah Davis to Kate Bender.
And then she had a conversationwith Sarah and claims that Sarah admitted

(46:45):
or provedthat she actually was Kate Bender.
So Sarah finds outthis woman thinks she's Kate Bender.
She leaves town.
She goes and lives with her motherin Michigan, a miss Elmira Monroe.
Elmira Monroeis where people think Mob Bender's name
is Elmira or Elvirajust sometimes swapped.

(47:06):
Yeah.
This woman.
I'll say it up frontbefore I hear the story.
She's not.
She's not my bender. She's.
She's and I'll explain why in a second.
But it is interestingbecause a lot of times
you read articles or stuffwhen you're researching this, like, Oh,
Bob Bender, Elmira,that's what her name was.
And it's like, no, no, no, that's not it.
So anyway,
this, this story is an episode on

(47:27):
it's about the CliffsNotesversion is Frances
McCann gets people that support her theorythat these are the benders.
They go to Michigan,they arrest Sarah Davis and her mom,
and each one beginsto blame the other one, her
say the other one is Ma Benderand Kate Bender.
So both these women are like,yeah, that's that.

(47:48):
No, that's more bender.
I'm not Kate, but that's notbut everybody. Loves their sign.
In their sign.An affidavit, they're doing everything.
They also, I think, share a jail cellfor a lot of this.
Stuff, too.
Just so, so awkward.
And they get shipped down to Kansasand they're put on trial
for being the bendersand it gets even more bonkers

(48:09):
because Leroy Dick saysthat has to be more bender.
Other witnessesthat near the benders are like,
No, that's definitely not the Benders.
Other ones are like, Oh, that'sdefinitely the Benders. Everybody's
however, for the most part,
most of the witnessesclaim that they are not the benders.
Even Kate's personal doctorwho helped Kate with Dr.

(48:32):
Things is like, No, I know Kate.
That's not that's not Kate.
Oh, by the way, this is about ten yearsafter they disappeared.
Yeah, duringthe trial is just super bizarre.
They both claim thatthey're not the benders they were like.
We never said we were the benders
after a period of time, it's like, wait,but you did.
You were each saying you were the benders.
You didn't say you were the better. Yeah,the other one was.
And it turns out Elmira Monroe was marriedto a guy named John Flickinger

(48:55):
who had passed away at this point.
And people start to assumethat John Flickinger was Paul Bender.
That's where, again, when he researchedthis, people call Paul Bender.
John Flickinger It's not not his name.
That was Elmira man Rose Husband.
So there ended up there's not
enough evidence to convict themas the benders there let go.
Also, they were American.

(49:16):
Both of them were born in the States.
Neither one had a German accentand both of them spoke English fluently.
And we know that Ma barely spokeEnglish, right?
So they were not the benders.
So yeah, it's just an interesting storyand a nice example of how a lot of
craziness goes on about who is the bendersand what happened to him.
Frank McPherson,who helped them on the lam.

(49:39):
The Benders was finally arrestedin New Mexico.
He could have been staying
with the Bendersas he kept progressing west over the years
because he definitely was part of theirtheir movements.
Thomas Beers,one of the detectives, claimed in 1901
to still be watching the Benders closely,
so he thought they were still out thereand he was keeping an eye on them.

(50:03):
And then the famousstory about the benders
is that in 1937,
Laura IngallsWilder from Little House on the Prairie,
she claimed that she stoppedat the Bender cabin as a kid
and that her father, Parr,was part of a posse
that hunted them down and claimedthat no one would ever find the benders.

(50:25):
And this is this still comes up in like,
chats and stuff where people are like, oh,my God, the little house on the Prairie.
They they were there with the benders.
It's likely this story is not true at all.
It is.
Laura's, Laura's sister convinced herapparently to tell this as a story,
to help kind of publicize thingsto the history of when the Ingalls

(50:48):
were or when the family excuse me,when that family was in
Kansasdoes not match up with the benders at all.
So it is likely a very, very fake story
that just gets played around in folklore.
So that is the end of the talebecause they just disappear after all.
That kind of wraps it up again.

(51:09):
Myth My only new theory on this
because there's no way to knowwhat happened to them.
I think theymy personal thought is they died.
I just think, you know, life is tough.
They're criminals. Right? Right.Someone's going to.
She were already they weren'tthey weren't super young.
No, no. Especially mine, huh? Yeah. Yeah.
So, yeah, I think.

(51:30):
I think they died.
I honestly do.
I think they. Became, like, boogeymen.
Yeah.
And I think just from the nature of livingout there and also they piss people off.
They piss people off all the time.
So it's like you're out.
You're hanging out with outlaws.
You'reyou're not hanging out with good people.
Like, Oh, no, yeah, yeah.
I could easily even see one of thembecause it was a national storyline,

(51:53):
piecing it together.
I'm like, Wait,did you really kill at least 11 people?
And you know,who knows what they would have said?
And then just having someonetake Western justice out on a
so I do not think they survived.
I don'tI do not think any of the rumors of Kate
Bender being found in California, New Yorkor wherever else,
I think that's all hooeyand just part of legend.

(52:16):
But yeah.
What are your thoughts?Do you have any thoughts? John.
I there is one one account that I thoughtwas really interesting.
It said the 12 men that were arrested
in all have been involvedin disposing of the victim's stolen goods.
With Mitt Cherry,a member of the Vigilance Committee,
implicated for forging a letterfor one of the victims.

(52:37):
Yeah.
Informing the man's wife that he'd arrivedsafely. Yep.
Destination Illinois.
I thought that was really interesting,because it sounds like maybe some of
they didn'tget rid of all of the stolen stuff.
Oh, yeah, definitely they could have.
They probably had a lot of iton the property.
Yeah.
Well propertyI think they took a lot with them
because they did when they were on the lam
they bought carriages and guns and clothesand all this kind of right.

(53:01):
So they definitely took some withto either trade or sell
to be able to finance theirtheir journey out of Kansas,
if I remember
correctly, with that storythat happened early on not the
the arresting the guy but they found outthat he forged the letter that was like
really early in their in their processof killing

(53:21):
multiple people, which is really terriblevigilance committees.
By the way,that was the typical way that they did.
Law enforcement at that time wasthere wasn't a lot of law.
It was a bottom up.
And they would just get people to getbut they would do it under the guise
of like some sort of official capacity,like city officials.
Like they were. Deputized.
They were deputized like you're deputizedas a vigilance committee.

(53:43):
And historically,
because I read a lot of accountseven unrelated to the benders,
but just stuff happening in the areaat the time,
they would just arrest anybody like,oh, that guy looks funny.
That's arrested.
Well, as you saw from the neighbor.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
They hung twice.
Yeah.
My my big thought on this was I don'tthink they hit people through the canvass.

(54:06):
But I have to say,
I give you a lot of credit because now I'mI'm really second guessing that
I just do worry about like tearing it openand whatever.
And well well, it also depends onwhat they mean by canvas.
Was it a sheet?
It was thick and you know what I mean?
Like, it'stypically referred to as a wagon cover.
So it would have beenthick, would have been a thick.

(54:26):
So that's thick and and leatherusually I think.
Right. Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Stretch leatheror it could be. Yeah, it is.
And as much as people say it'sthe hammer's like, that's one of those
historical, not fallacy of the wayit very well might have used hammers,
but it maybe they did have a slapjackmaybe they did have something like that.

(54:46):
Yeah.
To hit somebody on the head
that wouldn't have necessarilygushed blood just a knock about
and then come around the cornerand start hitting them
on the head to kill them becausethey tried to kill them fast, you know.
So it's like just knock them out andthen start whacking them with a hammer.
Or just knock them out and just cut thethroat. Yeah, yeah. You know,
and it is
and a couple of things I read to said thatnot all of the victims were rich.

(55:09):
No, no, they didn't have any money.
You know, some of. Themdidn't have any money.
They were they either were doing itfor the pure thrill of it
or they would mistake it.
They would be like, Oh,this guy's got to have money.
Oh, sure. Yeah,you know. That kind of thing.
But that's part of the motivation ofthis is they are
they're not unique serial killersby any means, but they're not

(55:30):
you know, they're they're not a Jackthe Ripper.
They're not a Dahmer.
They I think they were primarily doingthis for it was their business model.
You're like,hey, guys. Yes, here's the business plan.
You know, we do this.
But they did it
so often over a period of few yearsbecause they they know
for a fact is that I think it's 11,if I remember correctly, 11 victims,

(55:52):
they are almost 100%sure they killed. Yes.
But it's like they don't know quiteif that was.
Yeah, I've seen it actually up to 2014.
Yeah.
It's only 23 is what you read a lotbut they,
they're not confirmedbut I think you're not exactly.
But I definitely think it's more than 11.
Yeah, I think it's more than than 11because you did have those bodies

(56:15):
initially found dumped in the creekand the other one half eaten by hogs.
Right.
And it's like there might be other ones.
It's it's a sparse area at the time.
There could be other bodiesdumped, other places they never found.
And which also lends to
it's probably a lot easier to disappearback then.
Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
Potentially split up. Yeah.

(56:36):
And that's also part of the reasonthey may have targeted southern Kansas.
As I've said before, in thesethese episodes, you can disappear
in Indian territory just directly south
and and where there's even less law andthere's less people looking for you. So
I, they
strategized, they strategizedhow they were going to kill people.
They strategizedwhere they were going to live.

(56:58):
And we don't know anything about wherethey came from or where they went.
And that is part of part of the mystery,the lingering
mystery and part of the
the kind of thrillof thinking about the bloody benders is
we have no idea who they wereor where they went and they may not have
even been Bender like that,may not have been anybody's real name.

(57:20):
So it is it's a bizarre,
bizarre tale of just pure eviljust pure evil.
Yeah. And and also I will mention this.
I have reached out to the gentlemanwho now owns
the property that the bender cabin was on.
I have not heard back yet.
So if you are listening to this,

(57:41):
if you're listening to thisand you know him, please pass on a message
that I would love to talk to you about.
I have emailed the guy I found him.
He actually wants peoplethat know what they're doing to come out
and like do sonar and actually, like,search the property
because it's been farmland.
It's been farmland,I think ever since after the benders.
So no one's done a properkind of big excavation of the property.

(58:04):
But just that general areawhere the orchard was,
I think all they did back then.
So there may be more,
there may be more more bodies to be foundthat are still there.
And I think that'sa really interesting cause.
Something if people do that for a living,if you have that kind of technology
and you want to help out and you thinkit's an interesting thing to be part of,
you can email me a study of strangergmail.com.

(58:26):
I'll try to put you throughor just find him.
He's online.
I don't have his information
in front of me, buthe has not hid his information out there.
And I do hopeif you're listening, contact me.
I'd love to have you on the showand interview you about your plans
and interests with the vendor property.
So yeah, there it is, John.

(58:46):
That's the story of the blood.
Is such a weird story. It yeah.
And like you said,I think the weirdest part to me
is the hacking kind of not understand.
But I get, like you saidis the business model.
Yeah, this is what we do get.
We get travelers and we steal their moneyand this is how we make money.
But just like that,no one knows where they came from.

(59:09):
The weirdness of the two womencoming from on it.
Yeah. Yeah.
And the other two guys coming from fromPennsylvania and then they just disappear.
Yeah.Never really existed. Never really exist.
And so much legend and conjecture, that.
Classic.
Like, it's so hard to figure it out nowbecause so much of the stories
we have are embellishedor made up or whatever.

(59:30):
So. Well, you know,that's there's human nature as well.
Yeah.
We're talking about earlier.
It's, you know, when there's gaps. Yep.
Our human nature is to fill them.
Yep. Always. We always make us.
We're all storytellers.Even if we think about a.
Story, we all make a verymake everything make sense.
Absolutely.
Well,thank you so much, John, for being on
and doing two partsof the bloody benders with me.

(59:52):
Thanks for having me.This is a. Blast. Yeah, it's super fun.
And also, your wife, Amber, was on My Manin the Latrine episode.
Which I. Think is the weirdest story I.
Ever. While it's so strange.
So everybody check out that episode.
It's so strange that I startedto feel uncomfortable in the episode
with Amber because I'm like, this is justthis is there's a dude in a septic tank.

(01:00:15):
I didn't know I was.I thought it was good.
Yeah, but I mean, just the just the,
you know, how to why was he there?
Was he forced in there?
Why was this you missing?
Yeah, it just really.
How did thisyou get in the toilet bowl? Yeah.
Just so ready.
So that a lot of that's intriguing.
And I know I was going to say listenersI think that's a that's a nice promo

(01:00:37):
for that episode I managers of a trainit's a few episodes ago check it out.
Yes thank you.
Do you want to tell everybodywhere to find you again and.
Oh, sure. Yeah.
You can find me on I'm on Twitter
at Gkidsfor as long as Twitter is still a thing.
And like all ofit seems to be out of the way.
Now I'm on Instagram under the same thingis probably a better way to find me.

(01:01:00):
You can find my websiteJohn and Keating dot
John and Keating acting dot com and
and I hope you guys will check outmy movie
that I co-wrote and that I'm in calledconcessionaires Must Die.
It's about the last daysof a single screen movie theater.
It's on iTunes and Amazon for Rent,and I think it's on to be in Plex as well.

(01:01:22):
If you if you don't mind watchingwith ads, I think you watch it with ads.
So what is a movie theater?
I've heard rumors that they're forI've heard.
Strange stories about. That now. Yeah,yeah.
It's hard to leave the house now.
Yeah, it is.
It is.
Cool.
Well, thank you very much, John,for being on. I really enjoyed.

(01:01:44):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
And I'll talk to you soon.
Okay.
And that concludes our two partsof the bloody benders.
These have been two of my favoriteepisodes to research and record.
If you enjoy this type of content, pleasemake sure to subscribe, rate and review.
You can also check out information, shownotes, links to our Patriot Program

(01:02:05):
where we'd love to see you on our website.
A study strange dotcomemail me ideas, questions, links,
anything you wantto a study of strange at gmail.com
and if you haven't been listeningto a recent episode, you know I'm slowly
compiling personal stories of UFOs.
If you have seen a UFO,
if you know somebody that has, please,I want to hear from you.

(01:02:27):
Reach out.
A study of strange. At gmail.com.
Check out John M Keating's workinformation will be in the show notes
links to his movie concessionairesMust Die, which is truly excellent.
Check that outand visit our sponsors as well.
And that'll do it.
Thank you and good night.

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Bloody Benders - Part Two

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Bloody Benders - Part Two