The Bloody Benders

This podcast discusses the 1800s Benders Family who killed more than 11 people on the only open trail heading west in the United State at the time.

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Episode Transcript

(00:12):
A composition of the killer fans DoctorCassidy. Here today we're going to be
talking about a very old case.This happened back in the eighteen hundreds.
But it's the reason that I wantto talk about this case is because it's
literally one of the most detailed storiesabout serial killers from that far back that

(00:38):
I have ever read. It's quiteremarkable. As always, before we begin,
just remember that everything we discuss herein this podcast it's not meant to
be a diagnosis of any kind,and we are searching for markers and other

(00:59):
case characteristics of people that may helpus in the future to determine future dispositions.
So today we're going to talk aboutthe Bloody Benders, the Bender family.
It was an entire family of serialkillers in Labette County, Kansas,

(01:22):
in the United States, and theydid their crimes from May of eighteen seventy
one to December of eighteen seventy two. The family supposedly consisted of John Bender,
his wife Elvira or Almira, it'snoted two different ways, their son

(01:42):
John Junior, and their daughter Kate. Now contemporary newspaper accounts report that the
benders neighbors claim that John and Katewere actually a husband and wife, possibly
by a common law marriage. Now, in eighteen ninety, Elvira Hill and

(02:02):
her daughter, missus Sarah Davis,both of Michigan, were charged for being
Elvira and Kate Bender, but theyproved that they were not that person and
they were released. So there wasa lot of back and forth of different
things during this case. It justseemed to go on and on. And

(02:25):
you have to remember that back inthe late eighteen hundreds, even into the
early nineteen hundreds, we did nothave the scientific tools that we have today,
and we also didn't have things.We also didn't have forms of identification

(02:46):
like we have today, So youmay have people that can just claim to
be someone else and completely re restarttheir life as someone new, and it
was much easier than to do thosetype of things. So you'll see,
especially in these older cases, you'llsee a lot of people who were drifters,

(03:08):
changed their name, change their information, and they're easily able to do
that, whereas today it'd be almostimpossible. All right, So, in
October of eighteen seventy five, familiesof spiritualists homesteaded in and around the township
of Osage in northwestern Leavitt County,which is approximately seven miles northeast of where

(03:34):
Cherryville was established seven months later.So this was a group of pilgrims,
if you will, that were homesteadingin the United States who were moving around.
They probably were granted property by thegovernment, and that's how they were
able to move around to different piecesof property and begin their homesteading. So

(04:00):
one of these families was John Benderand John Bender Junior, who registered one
hundred and sixty acres of land locatedadjacent to the Great Osage Trail, the
only open road for traveling farther west. So this, this Great Assage Trail
was very critical in the training inthe trading market back then. Being the

(04:29):
only open road. It would bejust like trade on like the Ohio River
where I'm you know, where Ilive in Portsmouth. That was the primary
means of moving anything. And socertainly to be located in this white it's
significant here is that being on andbeing on a road that's so important.

(04:58):
They're going to have a lot ofpeople traveling that road, so they're going
to have access to a lot ofdifferent people, and that's what you have
here in this case. So theysettled here and then they built a cabin,
a barn with a corral, andthey, of course they built a
well, very common back then.And then Elvira and Kate followed in the

(05:19):
fall of eighteen seventy one, andthat was very common also for the men
to move forward, get a lotof the work done in that regard,
and then the mother and the childrendidn't have to be a female child,
just any children that wouldn't be oldenough to work in that capacity they would
come later. So that's what happenedin this case, very normal for that

(05:45):
time. So oddly enough, theydivided their cabin into two rooms with a
canvas wagon cover. They used thesmaller room at the rear for a living
quarters, and the front room wasa general store where they sold dry goods.
And it's reported that there was acrudely drawn, misspelled sign that read

(06:08):
grocery, and instead of it beingspelled correctly g r O c e r
y, it was spelled g RO c r y, which historians indicate
a lack of familiarity with English.I've not seen where exactly what language they

(06:30):
would have spoken, but it justmay have been a different form of English.
Certainly we have. There's so manydifferent kinds of English that have their
own meaning of words. It's differentfrom the you know, what the general
public knows, so it could besomething like that. But anyway, they

(06:55):
certainly weren't educated in the English language. Based on this information, the front
section of the store also contained thekitchen and the dining table, where travelers
could stop for a meal or spendthe night. Elvira and Kate also planted
a two acre vegetable garden and anapple orchard north of the cabin, so
they were pretty self sufficient sufficient fromall reports, and they had to be

(07:19):
hard workers, because you don't havea two acre garden and run a business
like they were running and not workhard at it. You have to excuse
me, I'm seem like I'm somewhatlosing my voice today. So John Bender
Senor was around sixty years old,and he spoke little English, but the

(07:41):
English that he did speak was gutturaland usually unintelligible, and according to the
May eighteen seventy three edition of theEmporian News, he was identified with the
name William Bender instead of John.Elvira Bender was fifty five years old and
she allegedly spoke little English and wasso unfriendly that her neighbors called her a

(08:03):
she devil. John Bendergina was aroundtwenty five and handsome, with auburn hair
and a mustache. And he spokeEnglish fluently with a German accent. Okay,
and he was prone to laughing aimlessly, which led many to consider him
a half wit. And what Ifind interesting about John and also really Elvira

(08:28):
and John the Father, I feellike, just based on their descriptions that
they were obviously not highly educated people. They did speak a different language.
I mean, we can assume thatit's German because they say that John Junior
had a German accent, But wedon't know if they came straight from Germany,

(08:54):
or if they were just in partof a you know, an area
where everyone they were like German settlers, or we're just not sure. There's
just not a ton of information aboutthat background. But they were widely believed
to be German immigrants. All right, So this is for me, I

(09:24):
just I mean, this whole italmost seems like a you know, non
It just reminds me of a fictionalstory because it's so crazy. Kate Bender,
who was around twenty three, wascultivated and attractive and spoke very well,
spoke English very well, with alittle bit of an accent. She

(09:46):
was a self proclaimed healer and apsychic, and she distributed flyers advertising her
supernatural powers and her ability to cureillnesses. She also conducted seances and gave
lectures on spiritualistm and for which shegained notoriety. By advocating free love,
Kate's popularity became a large attraction forthe vendors in Although the elder Menders kept

(10:09):
to themselves, Kate and her brotherregularly attended Sunday School in nearby Harmony Grove.
So you've got this dichotomy of thisfamily. There's family of four and
you've got these two children who areoutgoing, speak English very well, tend

(10:31):
to be, you know, muchmore social than their parents. Their parents
are you know, for all practicalpoints, they're maybe like hermits. They
just didn't really get out that much. And for me, that's a red
flag immediately. You know, werethey were they just were they backwards?

(10:56):
Were they just odd people? Didthey not like other people, didn't like
to be in groups, didn't liketo make new friends? I mean,
what was their personalities? And herewe see this really interesting dynamic in this
family. The Benders were widely believedagain to be Germans, but there was
no documentation or definitive proof of theirrelationships to one another or where they were

(11:20):
born, and nothing else has everbeen found. So much of what we
learn on these really old cases isfolklore, rumors and accusations and things that
are passed down from generation to generation. Very common when you get when you
start talking about one hundred years agoor certainly further. But John Benders he

(11:46):
was from either Germany, Norway orthe Netherlands and may have been born John
Flickinger. According to contemporary newspapers,Elvira was born Almira Heill Mark Fen misreported
as Meek, which would be mE I k in the Adirondack Mountains.
She married Simon Mark, with whomshe claimed to have had twelve children.

(12:09):
Later, she married William Stephen Griffith, and Elvira was rumored to have murdered
several husbands, but none of theserumors were ever proven. Kate was purportedly
Elvira's fifth daughter. Some of theBender's neighbors claimed that John and Kate were
not brother and sister, but husbandand wife, and if that were the
case, they would have had Ifthey were telling the truth about their ages,

(12:33):
there would have been a pretty significantage difference. And so from those
who knew them and have written aboutthe Benders, these are all quotes from
different publications. The old man wasa repulsive, hideous brute without a redeeming
trait, dirty, profane, andill tempered. Old Missus Bender was a

(12:56):
dirty, old Dutch crone. Herface was a fit picture of the midnight
hag that wove the spell murderous ambitionabout the soul of Macbeth. Oh my
goodness, these are I just lovethe language that they use in these young
Bender seen when excited, recalled thegrave robbing hyena. Once to mind,

(13:20):
Kate proclaimed herself responsible to no onesave herself. She professed to be a
medium of spiritualism and delivered lectures onthat subject. In her lectures, she
publicly declared that murder might be adictation for good, that in what the
world might deem villainy, her soulmight read bravery, nobility, and humanity.

(13:41):
She advocated free love and denounced allsocial regulations for the promotion of purity
and the prevention of carnality. Whichshe called miserable requirements of self constituted society.
She maintained carnal relations with her brotherand boldly proclaimed her right to do
so in the following words found inher lecture transcript. Shall we confine ourselves

(14:03):
to a single love and deny ournature's their proper sway? Even though it
be a brother's passion for his ownsister, I say it should not be
smothered. Kind of brings to mindin Game of Thrones, doesn't it.
In May of eighteen seventy one,the body of a man named Jones was
discovered in Drum Creek with a cutthroat and a crushed skull. The owner

(14:26):
of the Drum Creek claimed that wassuspected, but no action was taken.
In February of eighteen seventy two,the bodies of two men were found with
the same injuries as Jones, andthen by eighteen seventy three, reports of
missing people who had passed through thearea had become so common that travelers began

(14:46):
to avoid the trail, which makesperfect sense right. The area was already
widely known for horse thieves and villains, and vigilance committees often arrested some for
the disappearances, only for them tolater released by the authorities. Many innocent
men under suspicion were also run outof the county by these committees. Again,

(15:07):
totally different social system at that time. You know, you have completely
different jurisdictions, are so different inback during these times, we didn't really
have universal laws and understandings, sothings were treated very differently and very locally.

(15:31):
In the winner of eighteen seventy two, George Newton Longcourps left Independence,
Kansas with his infant daughter Marianne,settle in Iowa. They were never seen
again. In the spring of eighteenseventy three, long course former neighbor,
doctor William Henry Yorke, went lookingfor them and questioned homesteaders along the trail.
York reached Fort Scott and on Marchninth, which just happens to be

(15:54):
my birthday. I wasn't born backthen, though on much Knop began the
return journey to Independence, but neverarrived. York had two brothers, Ed
York living in Fort Scott, andColonel Alexander em York, a Civil War
veteran lawyer and member of the KansasState Senate from Independence. Both knew of

(16:17):
William's travel plans, and when hefailed to return, began an all out
search for the missing doctor. ColonelYork, leading a company of some fifty
men, questioned every traveler along thetrail and visited all the area homesteads.
Keep this in mind, they didnot have news media like we have today.

(16:40):
They did not have ways to communicatelong distances except for telegraph, and
that those were only received as fastas the horse could travel. Right.
So, when you're trying to findout all this information and you're not a
law enforcement agency, you really dohave to beat that path. You have

(17:06):
to talk to every single person,every single you know, they went to
every homestead and they're just becoming youknow, rogue detectives trying to figure out
what happened to their brother. Now, remember, Colonel York is the one
who, excuse me, was theone that really led this charge, and

(17:29):
because he was a colonel that helda great deal of power back in that
time. I mean it does nowtoo, but back then, in the
eighteen hundreds, it was i meantypically their word was law. So you're
I'm setting this up for you.You want to see that this was a

(17:51):
person that was held in very highesteem and someone who had the power,
the ability of the money, theresources to be able to do this.
In search of his brother, onMarch twenty eighth of eighteen seventy three,

(18:11):
Colonel York arrived at the Bender's Endwith a mister Johnson, explaining that his
brother had gone missing and asking ifthey had seen him. They admitted that
doctor York had stayed with him andsuggested the possibility that he had run into
trouble with Indians, which was alsovery common back then. They would blame
things on the Indians, which wasone reason that all of the Indians were

(18:32):
gathered up, and remember the trailof tears and all that were thought to
be unsocialized. So therefore they wereput into these I don't want to call

(18:53):
them communes, but you know what, they were just gathered together and they
put them in these tribes, wereput together into these like villages, if
you will. But they were putthem far enough away from the quote unquote
civilization as to not have any problemsout of them, because they thought they

(19:15):
were savages. Excuse me when Yorkrepeated the claim. Well. On April
third, Colonel York returned to theInn with armed men after learning that a
woman had fled the inn after ElviraBender had threatened her with knives, so
Elvira allegedly could not understand English,while the younger Benders denied the claim.

(19:40):
When York repeated the claim, Elvirabecame enraged, saying the woman was a
witch who had cursed her coffee,and ordered the men to leave her house,
revealing for the first time that hersense of the English language was much
better than was led on before Yorkleft. Kate asked him to return alone

(20:02):
the following Friday night, and shewould use her clairvoyant abilities to help him
find his brother. The men withYork were convinced that the Benders and a
neighboring family, the Roaches, wereguilty and wanted to hang them all,
but Yorke consisted that evidence must befound. Around the same time, neighbouring
communities began to make accusations that theOsage community was responsible for the disappearances,

(20:26):
and the Osage township arranged a meetingin the Harmony Grove schoolhouse. Seventy five
locals attended the meeting, including ColonelYork and both John Bender and John Bender
Junior. After discussing these disappearances,including that of William Yorke. They agreed
to obtain a warrant to search everyhomestead between Big Hill Creek and Drum Creek.

(20:48):
And you know that wouldn't happen todayunless they had significant evidence that suggested
there might be further evidence in thehomesteads. Despite York's strong suspicions regarding the
Benders since his visit several weeks earlier, no one had watched them and it
was not noticed for several days thatthey had fled. So in between this

(21:10):
meeting and them getting this warrant tosearch all of the homesteads, the Bender
family left. Three days after thetownship meeting. Billy Toll was driving cattle
past the vendor property when he noticedthat the inn was abandoned and the farm
animals were unfed. Toll reported thefact to the township trustee, but due

(21:36):
to inclement weather, several days lapsedbefore the abandonment could be investigated. The
township trustee called for volunteers, andseveral hundred turned out to form a search
party that included Colonel York. Whenthe party arrived at the inn, they
found the cabin empty of food,clothing, and personal possessions. A bad
odor was noticed and traced to atrap door underneath the bed nelt shut.

(22:00):
After opening the trap, the partyfound clotted blood on the floor of the
empty room underneath, which was approximatelysix feet deep seven feet square at the
top by three feet square at thebottom. They broke up the stone slab
floor with sledgehammers, but found nobodies and determined that the smell was from
blood that had soaked into the soil. The men then physically lifted the cabin

(22:23):
and moved it to the side todig under it, but no bodies were
found. They then probed the groundaround the cabin with a metal rod,
especially in the disturb it in thedisturbed soil of the vegetable garden and orchard,
where doctor Yorke's body was found laterthat evening, buried face down with
his feet barely below the surface.Remember this was a two acre vegetable garden

(22:48):
and orchard, so it was quitea bit of land they had to cover.
The probing continued until midnight, withanother none suspected grave sites marked before
the men were satisfied they had foundthem all and retired for the night.
The next morning, another eight bodieswere found in seven of the nine suspected
graves, while one was found inthe well along with several body parts.

(23:12):
All but one had their heads bashedwith a hammer and throats cut, and
newspapers reported that all were indecently mutilated. The body of the young girl was
found with no injuries sufficient to causedeath, and it was suspected that she
had been strangled or buried alive.And remember, back then, they would

(23:34):
not have had the knowledge the equipmentto do an autopsy that would have determined
if she had been strangled or buriedlove without doubt, so they just had
to go on their suspicions based onthe evidence that was in front of them.
A Kansas newspaper reported that the crowdwas so intensed after finding the bodies

(23:55):
that a friend of the benders namedBrockmann, who was among the onlookers,
was hanged from a beam in theinn until unconscious, revived, interrogated,
and then hanged again. And that'spretty horrible, pretty tragic torture to get
someone to talk. But after thethird hanging they released him when and he

(24:18):
staggered home as one who was drunkenor deranged. A Roman Catholic prayer brick
was found in the house with notesinside written in German which were later translated.
The texts read Johanna benderborn July thirty, eighteen forty eight. John Giphart
came to America in July one ofeighteen and the last two numbers are indistinguishable.

(24:41):
And then Big Slaughter Day January eighth, and Hell departed. Word of
the murders spread quickly. In morethan three thousand people, including reporters from
as far away as New York Cityand Chicago, visited the site. The
Bender Kevin was destroyed by souvenyir Hadwho took everything, including the bricks that

(25:02):
line the seller and the stones liningthe well. Of course, you know
that wouldn't happen today because that wouldbe a safely guarded area. Word of
the murders spread quickly, like wesaid, and then the state Senator Alexander
York offered one thousand dollars reward forthe family's arrest, which to us sounds
pretty petty, But if you takeone thousand dollars, then it's equal to

(25:32):
twenty four thousand, four hundred andtwenty eight dollars today in today's money.
So that was a significant amount ofmoney back then, a ton of money
back then. On May seventeenth,Kansas Governor Thomas A. Osborne offered a
two thousand dollars reward for the apprehensionof all four and two thousand dollars back

(25:52):
then is equal to forty eight thousand, eight hundred and fifty six dollars in
today's money, And for us,that's still seems like maybe a small amount,
but again, think about the times, think about the cost of living
back then, those type of things. That was likely close to millionaire status,
if you will. So it wasa big deal. It was a

(26:15):
huge effort to catch these people.So one of the folklore stories that goes
around this story is that when aguest stayed at the Bender's bed and breakfast
in the host would give the guesta seat of honor at the table that
was positioned over a trapdoor into thecellar. And this is just crazy.

(26:40):
With the victims back to the curtain, Kate would distract the guest while John
Bender or his son came from behindthe curtain and struck the guest on the
right side of the skull with ahammer. One of the women would cut
the victim's throat to ensure death,and the body was then dropped through a
trapdoor. Once in the cellar,the body would be stripped and later buried

(27:00):
somewhere on the property, often inthe orchard. Although some of the victims
were wealthy, others carried a littleof value, and it was surmised that
the Benders had killed them simply forthe sheer thrill. So, from what
we know about serial killers, whatwould you suppose what category would they fall

(27:23):
into. I'll give you a minuteto think about it. So if if
the evidence that we have tells usthat the Benders were killing simply for this

(27:49):
sheer thrill and not for like arobbery motive, I'm sure that was part
of it. I mean, theyprobably took advantage of whatever situation they were
in, but they didn't strictly killwealthy people. So I think they were
opportunistic. I think that they werethe type of serial killers who really did

(28:11):
get a thrill from this killing asa whole, as a family, and
they had I mean, think ofthe the depths of thought that had to
go into setting getting a person in, setting them at that particular chair where
there was a trap door, hittingthem in the head, which would most

(28:32):
likely render them unconscious or even killthem immediately, but certainly not have enough
about them to be able to struggle, and then slitting their throat all in
a very seemingly practiced manner. Sojust just heinous, really, I mean,

(28:56):
who you will watch a lot ofserial killers, and when they're trying
to take their victims' bodies from thecrime scene, they'll have to drag the
bodies because they're so heavy. Imean, there's a reason why we call
it dead weight. Dead weight feelstwo or three times everything the actual person's

(29:18):
weight. So they remedied that byhaving that trap door, and they could
just literally fall down into the basement, remember, which was six foot tall,
and so they were able to dowhatever it was they did to the
body. And then they moved itout to the orchard. And it didn't
say how far the orchard was orthe garden from the home, but it

(29:41):
could have been too far, justbecause that homesteads were set up, you
know, and the garden was suchan important part of you know, their
lifestyle and their ability to live thatit would have been close to the home.

(30:07):
Testimony from people who had stayed atthe Bender's Inn and managed to escape
before they could be killed. Appearedto support the presumed execution method of the
Benders. William Pickering said that whenhe had refused to sit near the wagon
cloth because of the stains on it, Kate Bender had threatened him with a
knife, whereupon he fled the premises. Now, remember earlier we said that

(30:32):
one of the ladies who had escapedsaid that she was threatened with a knife
by Kate Bender. So you know, the more you read, the more
little tidbits come around, and youthink, you know this has been repeated
multiple times. I think this wasprobably true. A Catholic priest's father,

(30:56):
Paul Ponzaglioni, claimed to have oneof the Bender men concealing a large hammer,
at which point he became uncomfortable andquickly departed, making the excuse that
he needed to tend to his horse. The Bender family sold stolen goods such
as horses, saddles, clothes,and other possessions under the guise that people

(31:18):
who spent the night and were unableto pay would pay for with those goods,
so they would barter. Pretty geniusactually kind of a way to lounder
what they'd gotten by saying that itwas bartered for a night's day at any
other time, a missus Fits,while sitting at dinner, became an easy

(31:44):
and sensed a muffled movement behind thecanvas. Kate issued a command, but
before anything could happen, the terrifiedFits fled. Two men who had traveled
to the end to experience Kate Vender'spsychic powers stayed for dinner, but refused
to sit at the table next tothe cloth, instead preferring to eat their
meal at the main shop counter.Kate then became abusive toward them, and

(32:07):
shortly afterward, the Bender men emergedfrom behind the cloth. At this point,
the customers felt uneasy and decided toleave, a move that almost certainly
saved their lives. So more thana dozen bullet holes were found in the
roof and sides of the cabin,and it was speculated by the media that
some of the victims had attempted tofight back after being hit with a hammer.

(32:35):
So obviously, I mean, Ithink most of us have read enough
about blunt Ford's trauma. You haveto hit someone in just the perfect spot
to render them unable to fight back, So if they weren't able to really
get a good hit in with thathammer. Certainly people would come out with

(33:01):
that fight or flight reaction and startfighting back. So I'm not surprised that
they found bullet holes. I amsurprised that they didn't didn't have some injuries,
but there's really no report of injuries. So at whatever level, they
were able to overcome that person,even though they were fighting back or shooting

(33:24):
back, trying to protect themselves.And you know, you're looking at two
or three people against maybe one ortwo visitors, so they get them with
that element of surprise. All everythingthat the vendors did based on this information
was very well thought out, verywell planned, very well organized. And

(33:50):
who else do we know who isvery organized in this manner. There's a
couple that come to mind, ofcourse, talk about so very often,
one being bt K, incredibly wellplanned, very organized, very well thought
out. That's why he got awaywith it for so long. And then

(34:15):
you've got Ted Bundy, who wasalso very aware of what he was doing,
very organized, very practiced, andthat's what you're seeing here. These
people were nice enough on the frontend that people felt comfortable enough staying at
their bed and breakfast, but thencertain things happened during dinners or gatherings that

(34:45):
caused them to become suspicious and evenflee. And you know when you can
imagine that they probably fled without anything. They probably didn't take anything with them.
They just ran to save their lives. So what they did here was
very well orchestrated. Now again,remember that we're looking at they've escaped,

(35:09):
and all these stories are coming forwardbecause there's like this huge manhunt for these
people and they're trying to get asmuch information at as they can. So
detectives that were following wagon tracks discoveredthe Benders wagon abandoned with a starving team
of horses with one of the Mayor'slane just outside of the city limits of

(35:32):
Fayer, which was only twelve milesnorth of the inn. It was confirmed
that the family had bought tickets onthe Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston Railroad for
Humboldt. At Chinout, John Juniorand Kate left the train and caught the
MK and T train south to theterminus in Red River County near Dennison,

(35:52):
Texas. From there, they traveledto an outlaw colony. And if you
know anything about history, I meancolonies is what they called pretty much everything
back then. You know, wehad New England colonies, we had the

(36:12):
Indian colonies. I mean everything wasjust called a colony, gathering of people
who chose to live together. Andthis one that they traveled to was considered
an outlaw colony. And it isexactly what this suggests that it is.

(36:34):
It's where outlaws would gather. Itwas a safe place for outlaws to be,
and so that's where we see wesee them John Junior and Kate going

(36:54):
to And remember that John Jr.And Kate were thought to be married,
not father and daughter. So thisfor me suggests that perhaps that's true.
Perhaps they were married, and we'llnever know what their true ages were because

(37:14):
you know, records aren't that greatback then, and they could lie about
how old they were, so theremay have not been a twenty some odd
year difference in their ages, butcertainly they lived that way. They lived
as father and daughter to the outsideworld. So from there, when they
discovered that they had taken the trainto Red River County. From there they

(37:39):
traveled to the outlaw colony colony thoughtto be in the border region between Texas
and New Mexico. They were notpursued as Loman. Following outlaws into this
region often never returned. So yousee, it wasn't safe. It was
safe for the outlaws to get inthere, but it certainly wasn't safe for

(38:00):
or lawmen or detectives anybody like thatto go in and try to find that
person or persons they were searching for. One detective later claimed that he had
traced the pair to the border,where he had found that John Junior had
died of apoplexy. The older Bendersdid not leave the train at Humboldt,
but instead continued north to Kansas City, where it is believed they purchased tickets

(38:24):
for Saint Louis, Missouri. Severalgroups of vigilantes were formed to search for
the Benders. Now, back then, you know what a vigilante was.
I mean, I think you do. I mean I think you should if
you watch any kind of westerns.Vigilantes were not recognized law officials for sure,

(38:51):
but they were typically a group ofmen who would get together form this
girl. They were typically outraged bya situation and wanted some form of justice,
and they were going to do it. If the law couldn't do it,
they were going to do it themselves, and that's what you've got here.

(39:15):
Many stories say that one vigilante groupcaught the Benders and shot all of
them but Kate, whom they burnedalive. Another group claimed they had caught
the Benders and lynched them before throwingtheir bodies into the Verdigree River. Yet
another claimed to have killed the Bendersduring a gunfight and buried their bodies on
the prairie. But no one everclaimed the three thousand dollars reward, and

(39:37):
a three thousand dollars reward back thenwas the same as seventy three thousand,
two hundred and eighty three dollars,which would have made if a group of
vigilantes had collected a reward, thisparticular reward, they would have been able
to split it and still lived avery good life, a very good life.

(39:59):
So the fact that you know thisis like, this is folklore.
This is what I was talking about. You don't know if it's true or
if it's not. That we dohave some little tidbits of information that give
us a clue. I'm sure ifany of these people did what they said

(40:20):
they did, they would have triedto claim that reward, because that's a
life changing amount of money. Thestory of the vendors escape spread and the
search continued on and off for thenext fifty years. Fifty years. This
is one of the longest searched casesfrom back in the eighteen hundreds I've ever

(40:44):
read. I mean, it's justamazing the amount of information that this particular
story has in it. Again,we know that, you know, just
because it's written down doesn't make ittrue, but I think that there's enough
evidence that shows us a good timelineof what happened, and how many people

(41:05):
they killed, and how they gotaway, those type of things. The
fact that we can figure out theirtypology. It seems like they were just
genuinely evil people. I mean thatgoes without saying, I think. But
often two women traveling together were accusedof being Kate Bender and her mother.

(41:28):
Remember, Kate was actually seen withJohn, so if he did die of
apoplexy, then she would have hadto have caught up with her mother at

(41:49):
some point because they weren't traveling together. Based on these reports, in eighteen
eighty four, it was reported thata John Flickinger had committed suicide in Lake
Michigan. Eighteen eighty four, anelderly man matching John Bender Senior's description,
was arrested in a Montana for amurder committed near sam and O, Idaho,
where the victim had been killed bya hammer blow to the head.

(42:13):
A message requesting positive identification was sentto Cherryville, but the suspect severed his
foot to escape his leg irons andblood to death. That's pretty pretty extreme.
He didn't think that went out verywell duty. By the time a
deputy from Cherryville arrived, identification wasimpossible due to decomposition. Despite the lack

(42:36):
of identification, the man's skull wasdisplayed as that of Pawbender in a salmon
saloon until prohibition forced its closure innineteen twenty, and then this school disappeared.
Whether John Flickinger was John Bender isunknown, so several weeks after discovery.
After the discovery of the bodies,Addison Roach and his son in law,

(42:59):
William Buxton, were arrested as accessories. In total, twelve men of
bad repute in general would be arrested, including Brockmann. All had been involved
in disposing of the victim's stolen goods, with Mitt Cherry, a member of
the Vigilanti committee implicated for forging aletter from one of the victims informing the
man's wife that he had safely arrivedin his destination in Illinois. Brockman would

(43:23):
be arrested again twenty three years laterfor the rape and murder of his eighteen
year old daughter. Man, youare dealing with just some very evil people
here, and I mean he waspart of this vigilante committee they're calling it,
when you know he was wanting to, you know, dish out some

(43:47):
vengeance. But yet he was probablyguilty of more crimes than the people that
he was chasing. A little bitof irony there. On Actober thirty first
of eighteen eighty nine, it wasreported that Missus Elmira Monroe, who was

(44:07):
also known as Missus Elmirah Griffith,and Missus Sarah Eliza Davis had been arrested
Innle's, Michigan several weeks earlier forlarceny. They were released after being found
not guilty, but were then immediatelyre arrested for the Bender murders. According
to the Pittsburgh Dispatch, the daughterof one of the Bender's victims, Missus

(44:29):
Francis E. McCann, had reportedthe pair to authorities in early October.
In early October, after tracking themdown, Missus McCann's story came from dreams
about her father's murder, which shediscussed with Sarah Eliza. The women's identities
were later confirmed by two Assage Townshipwitnesses from a ten type photograph. In

(44:52):
mid October, Deputy Sheriff Leroy Dick, the Assage Township trustee who had headed
the search of the Bender property,arrived in Michigan and arrested the couple on
October thirtieth. Following their release onthe larceny charges, Missus Monroe insisted excuse

(45:12):
me. Missus Monroe resisted, declaringthat she would not be taken alive,
but she was subdued by local deputies. Missus Davis claimed that Missus Monroe was
a Viur Bender, but that shewas not Kate but her sister Sarah.
She later signed an affidavit to thateffect, while Monroe continued to deny the
identification and in turn accused Sarah Elizabethof being the real Kate Bender. Deputy

(45:39):
Sheriff Dick, along with Missus mckinn, escorted the pair to Oswego, Kansas,
where several members of a thirteen memberpanel confirmed the identification and committed them
for trial. Another of missus Monroe'sdaughters, Mary Gardy, later provided an
affidavit claiming that her mother, whowas then known as Olmyra Shearer under the

(46:01):
name of Almira Marx, was servingtwo years in the Detroit House of Corrections
in eighteen seventy two for the manslaughterof her daughter in law. Records of
the incarceration back up this affidavid,So after her hearing, Missus Monro denied
any knowledge of Shearer or the manslaughtercharged and remained incarcerated with her daughter.

(46:25):
Originally scheduled for February of eighteen ninety, the trial was held over to May.
Missus Monroe now admitted she had marrieda mister Shearer in eighteen seventy two,
and claimed she had previously denied itas she did not want the court
to know that her name was Shearerat that time and that she had a
conviction for manslaughter. See, itwas very easy for them to lie and

(46:50):
create these new identities, and theonly way they really could trace it back
to them is if there was somephysical evidence that put that person in that
vicinity. Judge Calvin during this timedismissed Mary Guardi's affidavid as she was a

(47:21):
chip off the old block, andhe found that other affidavits supporting Guardians were
sufficient proof that the woman could neverbe convicted, and he discharged them.
Both the affidavits and other papers thatwere missing from the file on of that
county, so further examination is impossible. Several researchers questioned the ready acceptance of
the affidavit's authenticity and suggests that thecounty was unwilling to accept the expenses of

(47:45):
boarding the two women for an extendedperiod. While the two women were certainly
criminals and liars, as their defenseattorney admitted, the charges were weak and
many people doubted their identification as thevendors. Additionally, the older woman reportedly
spoke with no accent, whereas myvendor struggled to speak English fluently. But

(48:09):
remember when she became enraged, sheactually spoke English very well. So here's
some of the victims from May ofeighteen seventy one, mister Jones. His
body was found in Drum Creek witha scrash, a crushed skull and a

(48:29):
throat cut. In February of eighteenseventy two, two unidentified men were found
on the prairie in February of eighteenseventy two, and they also had crushed
skulls and their throats were cut.In December of eighteen seventy two, on
the fourth Ben Brown from Howard County, Kansas went missing. He was buried

(48:54):
in the apple orchard. He hada reward his you know, for someone
to find him, of twenty sixhundred, which today would be sixty three
thousand, five hundred and twelve dollars. And then on the fifth the same
year, W. F. Mccrotdy, who was a colonel with the one

(49:17):
twenty third Infantry, he had thirtyeight dollars on him, which is the
equivalent of nine hundred and twenty eightdollars today, and a wagon with a
team of horses missing on the sixthof December's you know, three days in

(49:37):
a row here so far, eighteenof seventy two. I mean this sued
Kim the sixth of December, sowe've gone fourth, fifth, and sixth
of December eighteen seventy two. HenryMcKenzie relocated two independence from Hamilton County,

(49:58):
Indiana, and he had thirty sixdollars on him I just read that.
I'm sorry the way this is theway I wrote this is kind of hard
to read. I was in ahurry anyway. So twenty twenty three,
it was eight hundred and seventy ninedollars and a matched team of horses were

(50:22):
missing. And then December of eighteenseventy two, John Bull from Howard County,
Kansas, he had ten dollars onhim, which is the equivalent of
two hundred and forty four dollars apacing mayor, and an eight hundred and
fifty dollars saddle was missing, whichwas found in the bender's well, and
that saddle in today's money would beworth twenty thousand, seven hundred and sixty

(50:46):
four dollars. On December the eighthand the ninth of eighteen seventy two,
George Newton loncourt AND's eighteen month olddaughter Marianne. Contemporary newspapers reported his name
is either George Longcourps or George Launcher, while Marianne is similarly reported as being

(51:07):
either eight years old or eighteen monthsold. And that's why you've got to
look at multiple pieces of data orinformation from this time to just gather as
much as you can and then makea determination on what is accurate. According
to the eighteen seventy census, Georgeand his wife Mary Jane were neighbors of

(51:27):
Charles Ingalls and Family and Independence,while his wife's parents lived two houses away.
After the deaths of his infant sonRobert from pneumonia in May eighteen seventy
one, and his twenty one yearold wife, Mary Jane, who was
a Gilmour following the birth of Marianneseveral months later, George was likely returning

(51:49):
to the home of his parents,Anthony and Mary Hughes Long Corps in Lee
County, Iowa. In preparation forhis return to Iowa, George had purchased
a team of horses from his neighbor, doctor William Henry Yorke, who later
went looking for George but was alsomurdered. Both were Civil War veterans,
and nineteen hundred dollars had went missing, and that was the equivalent today to

(52:15):
forty six, four hundred and thirteendollars. The daughter was thought to have
been buried alive, but that wasunproven. No injuries were found on her
body, and she was fully clothed, including mittens and a hood. Both
were bruised together in excuse me,both were buried together in the apple orchard.

(52:37):
Then the tenth of December, JohnGreary was found buried in the apple
orchard. On the eleventh, RedSmith was buried in the apple orchard.
On the twelfth, Abigail Roberts wasfound buried in the apple orchard, and
then the thirteenth through the fifteenth variousbody parts and the parts did not belong

(52:58):
to any of the other victims foundand are belonged to belong to at least
three additional victims. On the sixteenthand nineteenth of December, during the search,
the bodies of four unidentified males werefound in Drum Creek and the surrounds
all four head crushed skulls and throatcuts. One may have been Jack Bogart,
whose horse was purchased from a friendof the Benders after he went missing in

(53:22):
eighteen seventy two. And then finallyon the twentieth of May, doctor William
York went missing and he was buriedin the apple orchard, and he had
two thousand dollars on him, whichwas the equivalent of forty eight, eight
hundred and fifty six dollars in today'smoney. By including the recovered body parts

(53:45):
not matched to the bodies found,the fines are speculated to represent the remains
of more than twenty victims, exceptfor Mackenzie and York, who were buried
in Independence, the Lancourps were buried, who were buried in Montgomery County,
and mccrody, who was buried inParsons, Texas Parsons, Kansas. None
of the other bodies were claimed,and they were reburied at the base of

(54:06):
a small hill one southeast of theBenders Orchard, one of several at the
location now known as the Benders Mound. The search of the cabin resulted in
the recovery of three hammers, ashoehammer, a claw hammer, and a
sledge hammer that appeared to match theindentations in some of the skulls. So

(54:28):
you see some forensics, forensic pathologyand research here for what they had available
to them at that time, andwe still do this today. The hammers
were displayed at the Bender Museum inCherryville, Kansas from nineteen sixty seven to

(54:50):
nineteen seventy eight, when the sitewas acquired for a fire station. When
attempts were made to relocate the museum, it became a point of controversy some
locals object to the town being knownfor the Bender murders. The Bender artifacts
were eventually given to the Cherryvale Museum, where they remained in a well mounted
display case. A knife with afour inch tapered blade was reportedly found hidden

(55:13):
in a mantelclock in the Bender Houseby Colonel York in nineteen twenty three.
It was donated to the Kansas Museumof History by York's wife, but is
not on display, still bearing reddishbrown stains on the blade, and it
could be seen upon request a historicalmarker describing the Ben's crimes as located in

(55:34):
the rest area at the junction ofUS Route four hundred and US Route one
sixty nine north of Cherryvale. Now, excuse me. Of course, we
have stories where we have these infamousserial killers, but not a lot of

(55:54):
people, not a lot of communitieslike to memorialize them as this area did.
And of course not everyone agreed withit. But I agree with this
person really who said that they didn'twant their town to be remembered for the

(56:17):
Bender murders. But they again,they have a Bender museum because it is
interesting. It's interesting that it happened. I don't know if I would want
my town known for that, youknow. So there's quite a few pieces
of literature and film that you canwatch about these killings. Anthony Boucher's nineteen

(56:43):
forty three story They Buy is setat a western oasis where the Krkers once
killed. In eight Travelers, thehypothesis exploded that they were the Benders who
in this telling eight they're victims.After leaving Kansas, there are still eating
some things at the oasis, andthe hypothesis is that the Benders linked up

(57:04):
with a supernatural power in the desertand became nearly immortal. Again some good
folklore there. Candle of the Wickedwas written in nineteen sixty by Manly Wade
Wellman, and it recounts the eventsleading up to the discovery of the Benders
killings. The Bloody Benders was releasedin nineteen seventy, and of course that's

(57:25):
what they became known as The BloodyBenders by Robert Adelman is a fictional account
of the family and murders. Thenthere's a Western novel, The Hell Benders
by Ken Hodgson, which focuses onthe manhunt for the Benders. In Neil
Gaiman's novel American Gods of two thousandand one, the main character's Shadow and
his associates mister Nancy and cher Chernobog, visit a clearing near Cherryvale, Kansas.

(57:52):
Mister Nancy tells Shadow that a groupof people, the Benders, used
to make human sacrifices to Chernibog inthe clearing. Churnabog is a Russian deity
and it drew sustenates of power fromthe murders because the Benders used his chosen
instrument, which was a hammer.So you can you can look online and

(58:13):
find all different kinds of books,journal articles, things like that written about
this family. There's a film calledBender that was released in twenty sixteen,
and then there's some graphic novels,music, even television shows that have covered

(58:35):
this story. So you know,there's a lot of information about this that
you typically don't see with cases thatare this old. It's very, very
limited. So this one was incrediblyinteresting. There is no information about the
childhood of these these serial killers,so I can't say for sure that you

(59:05):
know they had some sort of predispositionas a young child. I do think
you have to be born quite evilto be able to do these type of
things, and for these people tosomehow be together, whether it's by relation
or they just ran upon each otherand they all discovered that they enjoyed the
favorite pastime. So again, youcan watch a ton of information about them

(59:31):
online and see if you want tosee. There's also some there's some sketches
of the family. It doesn't reallytell you a whole lot about it.
I mean, you can get anidea of what they look like just from
these sketches, but it's pretty interesting. So I encourage you, if you're

(59:55):
interested in this, to go aheadand look at that. And there's actually
a picture of the bender in theday after the grave digging began, which
it's just a tiny, little,little, tiny little building with two windows
and a door in the front.Doesn't look like anything that would be you

(01:00:19):
know that you would think anything badever happened there. It's just not very
There's nothing about it that stands outother than just a normal wooden structure.
So I hope you've enjoyed this story. I thought it was just crazy interesting,
and I also think that we canlearn a lot from stories like this

(01:00:45):
because it tells us that that serialkilling has been around probably since the beginning
of time, and while we don'thave records of things, not many past
the eighteen hundreds, you've got somepretty early ones, but they're very brief
in description. This literally is oneof the most well, I don't want

(01:01:10):
to say research, I guess itis, though it provides more information than
any other story I've ever read aboutthese type of killings that are this settled.
So excellent work on that for whomeverput all this together for us to
know. As always, if youhave questions or thoughts about this, you

(01:01:32):
can email me at doctor Kimberly Cassidyeighty nine at gmail dot com and like
and follow my pages. There's FacebookComposition of a Killer. There's Instagram,
I think it's under doctor Kimberly Cassidy. There's also TikTok, and of course

(01:01:59):
the web page if you want tolook at some of the podcasts and information
pictures that I have on there,and that's Composition of the Killer also.
So I hope you have I hopeyou had a great Christmas, a great
holiday, and I also hope thatyou have a wonderful New Year and you
will probably hear another episode next week, so I look forward to that.

(01:02:24):
Have a great day.