The Bloody Benders

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You are now listening to soft core history.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome back to software History. I'm your host for the week.
Damageester joined us always by Rob Fox and Scott Lopez again.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Just went on a three day long quest to Northumberland.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
How was it?

Speaker 4 (00:54):
It was great? See any what'd you see a lot
of pegasus? Oh wow, it's pegas high. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Yeah, we call them pegasus in the realms. Okay, okay, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:03):
I didn't know if there was a plural that was
pegas high or it used to be not to sound
like a used to be used to be.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yeah, there's only one pegasust just one anymore? Uh yeah,
big quest, same thing all the time, casting fireball and
love magic and.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
So it's either you make people fall in love or
you burn them alive.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah with fire. I only know two spells, so both ways. Yeah,
it's love spell and fire.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
But the love spell is also a fire spell. It
so he knows once.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
It ignites the fire in their souls.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Okah, but if you do it too strong to explode
and flames, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Turn the ash.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
Well, me and my wife are kind of like, I
don't really have it anymore. I'm my next quest, can
you if you could ignite some stuff. The quest is
lined up.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
Now my wife is pregnant, so please don't screw up. Yeah,
oh absolutely not. You know what I mean? Because if
she explodes in fire, that's two.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
How's that insurance policy?

Speaker 4 (02:05):
It's fine?

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Do they cover wizarding spells?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
I think that's an act of gods.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
It's an act of satan.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
If anything, I can come and make like tacos, first
ever Mexican wizard.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
You know, so if you accident immolate my wife an
unborn child, you're offering to cater the wake fiestas. Dude,
I guess younerally would even be awake.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
I'll have a siesta. They we'll have a fiesta. Okay,
deal out pastor? How's that big pastor guy?

Speaker 4 (02:42):
She yournes Big pastor? I like some barber CoA. I
can do that.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Okay. It's funny that we're talking about spells today, because
that's a good transition for the topic. We're talking about
a family a spiritualist that claim to have magic powers.

Speaker 4 (03:00):
My people. Well, no, they only claimed to you.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
You do I do, well, we're not sure if they
do or don't.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
Okay, Okay, but.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
I think I think ultimately its mean to decide at
the end of this, I think so if they do have.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, we'll kind of put a pinion this and revisit
at the end. Yeah, I think so did they have
were they magical psychic and magical powers? Okay? Or at
least did one of them have them? Fair enough, you know,
kind of judge each character individually.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
But I'm down.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
We're talking about the Bender family.

Speaker 4 (03:31):
Is this the Cave family?

Speaker 2 (03:32):
The what family?

Speaker 4 (03:33):
Were they? Like? They murdered people and went to a cave?

Speaker 2 (03:37):
No cave, damn it? Okay, but there is murder, but yes, murder, Yeah, yeah,
all right. It is Halloween horn Knight's after all. But
just after the Civil War ended, the United States government
moved the Osage Indians from le Back County in southeast
Kansas to the New Indian Territory, which would later become Oklahoma.

(03:57):
Vacated lamb was then made available to homestead. In eighteen
seventy five, families of spiritualists settled in this county, about
seven miles northeast of where Cherry Vall would be plated
a year later. One of these families was the Benders.
This lovely group of individuals consisted of John Bender, Senior,

(04:18):
his wife Almira, son John Junior, and daughter Kate.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
What's funny is is that even though they moved them,
I believe o Sage is still like it's called Osage
in the part they made them leave, so they named it.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
They were like, get out of here, we'll.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
Call it Oa Sage because of those people we kick.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
They were lazy back then. Yeah, I know, not a
whole lot of originality. Like do we really want to
come up with like a real name.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
We're gonna call Yeah, like Kansas City would.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Like an homage to them? Yeah, it's called Osage. Would
we kick out here? Got all right? Call it? Yeah,
that's good enough.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
I was very surprised in New York that, especially Long Island,
half the the towns there are still like native named towns.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
Everything's native name, even stuff you don't realize his native
name is native name, Like Missouri is a native name.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Didn't know that it means canoe people.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
Oh god, it's better than canoe people. Yeah, canoe people
sounds horrifically racist. Get these fucking canoe people out of here.
It's just like we just liked them. What the fuck? Yeah,
what did we have to do with anything? The fuck
up your canoe people, hold the clock, durm canoe people.
You know.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
I was staying in a place called Hogpog and it
was spelled like hagey peggy but pronounced hogpag pag.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Was that in New Yorker?

Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, New York And it's like a native thing whatever.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
It is all the Massachusetts suff I feel like, for
the most part, like quack a paga quack. It's all
fucking native.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
I never would have known that, Neverqua Pennsylvania, Saskatchewan. Yeah,
Saskatchewan is also in Canada or Saskatchewan, Uh, susquehannaquha either way.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
But Pennsylvania though not it's pennon Quaker Sylvania.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, but the rest of it.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
Yeah, the Northeast has the wildest Native American names for sure.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
I never would have known that except for last week
when I was there. It blew my mind.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, those ones are impossible.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
Yeah, like in Missouri or like so Kansas for example,
O Sage is one. Shawnee is another part of the
Kansas side. Uh, stuff like that, Like it's you look
at it and it's like relatively like a straightforward thing
to pronounce.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
But yeah, the Northeast is again.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
I dated a girl in high school named Shawnee. I
had no idea she was.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
No, she was white trash, that she's name. Yeah, she
just know she was just a garbage person.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
She actually helped me pass Spanish one.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
Yeah, her name was Shawnee and she has a bedazzled
Walmart jean jacket to that effect now I assume. Yeah,
to this day, I feel.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Like every guy has that kind of spiritual guide that
gets them through Spanish one. I had an ex girlfriend
that did that good.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
Yeah, I didn't learn a single thing and she just
like helps me get into Spanish too, where I just failed.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
But you know, that's all I know. I know I
took French.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
I know pencil sharpener, you would take French. Yep, that's
that's really funny. But the only reason I know, the
only reason I know pencil sharpener is because the name
is the word is sokka poun tas.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
Okay, it just sounds funny.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
So my teacher was like, oh, yeah, this is a
socca puntas, and I'm like, I'll remember that one.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
Soka puntas isn't poonta like a derogatory term, pouta is pa?
What are the vaxicines, yell at the goalie. That's like
it's like calling him gay or something like that.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
It's like it's something it's like calling him a pussy.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
It's like bouso or something that's something like I couldn't
even tell you. I don't speak it. Besides, and I can,
like I think I can.

Speaker 4 (07:53):
I think I can.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
I can tell someone to look at my butt. No,
I tell someone to pick my asshole. Okay, that's just melopeka.
I don't think it's like finger my butt, which is
like a bad term. It's worse for you than them, Yeah, exactly.
But it's a thing that you say as like an insult.

Speaker 4 (08:12):
But hey, you pick of your finger up mine pick
as dude, Hey, jam stuff up my ass And that's
like a bad thing that's kicking my ass.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
You bitch. So pab Bender chose one hundred and sixty
acre section on the western slopes of the Mounds that
continued to bear their name today. The property was located
directly on the Osage Mission Independence Trail from Independence to
Fort Scott. The family soon built a small one room
framed cabin, a barn, a corral, and dug a well

(08:46):
inside the wooden cabin. The area was partitioned with a
large canvas creating living quarters in the back and a
small inn in the front and a store.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
I'm sorry, so they had a sheet that's just cut
through the house.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, that's what you did back then. Okay, it's like
this side is our house. This side is the end.

Speaker 4 (09:08):
I mean, if you're already getting I understand, like cutting
down a tree is a bitch, and then you know,
shaving the wood and making and everything. But like at
some point, at some point, when you're banging your wife
and you know, every one of your children and I
guess the eight people that you're renting a room to

(09:29):
can hear it, you might be compelled to cut down
more trees.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Maybe something more permanent with the structures. Yes, maybe A
sign was hung above the front door that advertised groceries
to many travelers along the Osage Trail. The little store
carried a few supplies such as powder, shot, groceries, liquor, tobacco,
sold meals, and provided a safe overnight rest in place

(09:57):
to the strangers along the road. What year was this,
or so they thought, So this is all in the
eighteen seventies.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
Okay, so the lamps are bucking.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
His post Civil war. They're probably selling beer. They're probably
selling false staff immigrants from Germany, John Bender Sr. Was
sixty years old when he arrived in the area. His
wife was about fifty five. John Senior was six feet tall,
had long hair and a beard piercing black eyes under
huge brushy bat brows, which earned him the nickname old

(10:32):
beetle browed John Love that how many see you?

Speaker 4 (10:37):
Hear this a lot in history, especially in a lot
like historical stuff or even maybe like just to pre
World War two, like people with black eyes. Even he
had piercing black eyed Have you ever ever met anyone
with black eyes?

Speaker 2 (10:54):
They're all evil throughout history? Yeah, only evil people have
piercing black eyes.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
I've only met like opposing spellcasters with black eyes on
my quest.

Speaker 4 (11:05):
It's fair.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
I forgot that.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
It's probably the darkness that right, Yeah, yeah, it takes
their eye color.

Speaker 4 (11:12):
Yeah, and everything else.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
I don't actually look at people's eyes too often.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
No, that's probably the autism.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
I can't look at people directly in the eyes yet.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
Yeah, I know, you just stare down at your feet
and start raymanning like a podcast a podcast from Philly
Philly Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Podcast a podcast, But it takes me a while to
like notice people's eye colors, Like, I have no idea
what color eyes Rob has?

Speaker 4 (11:39):
Uh these piercing baby blues you knew.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
Dude, I'm not good at it because I'm color blind
as ship are you? Oh yeah, dude, fucking color blind
people are here.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Joel's color blind too.

Speaker 4 (11:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
When I first met Joel, like I was telling someone
about being color blade, He's like, fucking Joel's color blind.
I'm like, that's actually really funny. Yeah, there's multiple.

Speaker 4 (11:59):
Of us just bond over living in black and white.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah, well I can see, like I can see enough colors,
but I don't know what they are. What I can
like see colors, I just don't know what color it is.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
That makes sense.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
So everything's assigned a different color for you.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah, exactly. So I'm in like the multiverse. Color is
my sweatshirt blue?

Speaker 4 (12:19):
No it's not.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
I just said blue because I don't know why, like
a like a brown.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
Red clay.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Okay, you can't. You can't come out with two different colors,
like what colors? It's red clay. That's not a thing.

Speaker 4 (12:33):
No, red clay, that's one thing. No, it's not that
red comic clay. It's red clay. It's like he does.
No one knows what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
What color is his shirt?

Speaker 4 (12:45):
Blue? Okay?

Speaker 2 (12:46):
What color is shorts?

Speaker 4 (12:48):
Whoa? That one's tough pink.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
So you probably kind of have a problem with reds.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
Essentially blues, reds, greens, browns.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
You said you saw that you're like blue.

Speaker 4 (13:01):
Yeah, because well, I've I've.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
Lived this life long enough to assume he's not wearing
a purple fucking shirt. And he's wearing a Flyers jersey.
That's not purple phillies. But yeah, same thing, same thing.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
There's a p on it. Yeah. Oh, Flyers is a hockey,
isn't it.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
John and his wife spoke with extreme German accents that
few could understand. Mob Bender was a heavy set woman
so unfriendly with sinister eyes that her neighbors began to
call her she devil.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
I mean sinister eye. I believe black eyes is tough.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
They're probably black.

Speaker 4 (13:32):
It's better than monkey face. Yeah, better than monkey face
boy for a boy with down syndrome. Also, now, are
you just scott aroused at the thought of too heavy
German accents?

Speaker 3 (13:44):
Absolutely? Yeah, yeah, I love it. I don't know why
it's it's the fear boner. Yeah, it's a real thing.
If there was like a German goth chick. Yeah, I'm
with like a chest tattoo. I'm in and she dips
what Yeah, I know the dip park.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
God, dude, that's a fucking unicorn right there, sick.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
I should probably go to Germany sometime pretty soon for
it's too late.

Speaker 4 (14:09):
Yeah, with a log of.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Well, they all do the snorting tobacco October fast. Like
everyone thinks it's cocaine. It's just tobacco.

Speaker 4 (14:17):
Yeah, there's I mean, I mean it'll get you jacked
up real quick. It'll get you a boost of energy,
not like coke, but it'll get you a boost of
energy and a buzz. Yeah, Snuff's not bad. I I've
only done it once, but I enjoyed it.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
You you were kind of thrown back when I said
chest tattoos? Is that not a thing?

Speaker 4 (14:34):
Like underboot both like middle you know what if you
if you like it.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
Like like above titty below titty.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
I guess who's the most famous person with Like Rihanna,
right she has that? Does she have a chestat? I
think she has one? Right up?

Speaker 4 (14:48):
I would. I actually wouldn't know. I have no idea.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
Mhmm yeah, sternum or like collar bone, chest ones or
just that's that's peak Lady performance.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Abender claimed to be a medium who could speak with
the dead, boiled herbs and roots that she declared could
be used to cast charms or wicked spells. Her husband
and son were said to have feared her as she
ran the household with an iron hand. You would think
of magic hand.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
Here's your here's your Rihanna chest tat m m. Yeah,
it's dope, But she's Rihanna, so I don't care. She
can get a fucking she meant it.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Kind of famous though.

Speaker 4 (15:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Also, I am historically one to uh not care about tattoos,
whether if I'm getting it or someone else has one.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
You can't talk though what I'm saying, Like you can't.
You you are like you can't. You personally cannot judge
other people for that h tattoo. You have a Hillary child,
Give a child a tattoo of a child.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
On the outer thigh, not the inner thigh.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
That would be weird.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Still hairy Clinton, though?

Speaker 4 (15:56):
Could you can you stretch your penis out to touch
that tattoo?

Speaker 3 (16:00):
I haven't tried, but I'm sure I could.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
That tells me you have a hog.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
No, I have to like do some of contortionism.

Speaker 4 (16:10):
I'm just saying, like, theoretically, could your your penis can
touch a picture of a child's face.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
Okay, So first off, I was like, I want to
try it. Now I kind of don't. First of all, yeah,
I can touch it, but I'm like, I don't want
to because he made it. I did weird, weird, but
accurate it if I describing, Oh yeah, if I did
it just weird.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
What's there?

Speaker 4 (16:36):
You? You helped me get back into reality. Not try it. Yeah.
My first thought was I'm going to try it.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
You can't, you can't. No, I know, you can never know.

Speaker 4 (16:47):
You never know.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
John Bender Junior was a tall, slender man of about
twenty five who was handsome with auburn hair and a mustache.
He spoke English fluently with a German accent. He was
said to have been social, but he was prone to
laugh aimlessly, which led many people to believe he was
a moron.

Speaker 4 (17:06):
Oh so he's like Woking Phoenix and Joker.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Or just Kamala Harris.

Speaker 4 (17:12):
I feel like more like walking. I like the walking
FOI like, I guess it's commo true.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, she just she laughs at like inappropriate times. But
I kind of understand that as somebody making. I would
always smile when coaches yelled at me in sports because
it was like a nervous tick. Yeah, and I would
get yelled at further, Like you think it's funny boy,
I'm like, no, there's just social anxiety. Yeah, trying to
be great. I'm just trying to just try.

Speaker 4 (17:35):
And I'm like, sir, I'm submitting to you, and if
you would prefer, I will bend over. But smile is
my submission. But I will give you my hole if you.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Present my whole. You don't want it, but I'll present it.
It was mostly one basketball coach that really got upset.
He had like a Napoleon syndrume. I was taller than him,
much bigger than him. He tried to fight me in
eighth grade. He was a thirty five year old man.
Oh sweet, wrong with that? Yeah, I'm thirty eight.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
You ever try to fight a fourteen year old.

Speaker 4 (18:07):
I fight my kids whole time.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
If I had the opportunity, I would hasn't been presented.
I haven't seen a fourteen year I.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Won't fight anyone younger, smaller, weaker.

Speaker 4 (18:18):
I'll cast spells on them. Dude, But you said you
have love spells and fireball. But there again, they're the
same spell. It's the same spell. They're both a fire spell. Well,
they're a love spell.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
I don't think it gets he gets away with that
in court though.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
I also wouldn't want to cast a love spell on
a child.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
Yeah, but you said it was the same spell. So
your fire spells will love spell.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
Well, you know if you put it that way. See,
just like the Hillary Clinton thing, I can see. I
can see where you're at. A lot of questions right though,
you know, and they probably won't get answered.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
The daughter, Kate was the friendliest of the bunch, speaking
good English with just a slight accent. She was a
beautiful girl of twenty three, quick to laugh, talk to strangers,
and she and her brother John often attended Sunday School
near Harmony Grove. And we're readily we're readily accepted into
the community.

Speaker 4 (19:17):
I liked it quick to laugh as a compliment, like, oh,
she thought everyone was funny, like she was just like
she just made guys feel good about themselves. Yeah, it's funny.
What else would she do.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
She's a good conversationalist because she laughs at everything I say,
and she's like, oh, you're so funny. I'm sure like
that played back.

Speaker 4 (19:34):
There, which is kind of what women It's kind of
what women want now, right. They want a guy who
laughs at their jokes. See, it's so hard to so
you just got to. Yeah, you have to give them.
But back then, it was like, I want a girl
who like laughs at everything I say. I'm sure guys
actually still want that, but now it is a women
are asking for it too, and it's like, I earn it.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
I'm so proud of himself whenever he makes me laugh,
like genuinely laugh that hard.

Speaker 4 (20:02):
I get you, though, I get you all the time.
Yeah you do.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
But we've been doing that. We've known each other for
ten years. You know what makes me tick?

Speaker 4 (20:09):
You make me laugh all the time. But I'm a
generous laugher.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Did you cast a love spelling?

Speaker 3 (20:14):
I did as soon as I got here. That's why
I was on the parking lot for twenty five minutes.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
Now. Kit was a self proclaimed healer and psychic. She
gave lectures on spiritualism and conducted seances. She also claimed
to possess psychic powers, including communicating with the dead. She
soon found the lecture circuit profitable and began hucking supernatural
powers and the ability to cure illness.

Speaker 4 (20:41):
I mean, they're not burning witches anymore, so get paid.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
This little biscuit desired notoriety and often advocated free love
and justification for murder.

Speaker 4 (20:54):
Those feel like opposites. Yep, fuck who you want, kill
who you want. I guess it's kind of the same.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
Once peaks of the dead, they know what they want.

Speaker 4 (21:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
Along with her desire for fame, she also craved wealth
and position. Though her beauty and social skills gain popularity
with the locals, her actions began to cause them to
say that she was maybe a little satanic.

Speaker 4 (21:17):
She already sounds satanic. What it's all there? She's like, yeah,
I talked to the dad. You should be able to
fuck you want, and of course kill who you want.
And people are like, you know what, how those truck
mightn't be onto.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Sut She just sounds like a libertarian.

Speaker 4 (21:35):
Kinda.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
When the vendors open their store and in in eighteen
seventy one, many travelers would stop for a meal or supplies.
Some of these men began to start missing. They began
to just start going missing. They didn't keep traveling.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
No, it was their final stop.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
It was their final stop.

Speaker 4 (21:55):
Yeah, they'd a layover that they never left, so to speak.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
When friends and family would look for them, they would
trace them as far as the Big Hill Country of
southeast Kansas before finding no trace of the lost traveler.

Speaker 4 (22:07):
Whatso happening, Like, Oh, yeah, he left here. We never
heard from him again. He never made any of the
next because usually so people would say, it's like, oh,
it's pretty hard to be pretty easy to disappear. But
at the same time, like these trails were well traveled, Right,
if you were going to I don't know, fucking Albuquerque
from Saint Louis, right, you would go through Kansas City

(22:31):
and then maybe you whatever, you can start go on
south and you would pass through this area. Maybe you'd
stop there for the night, and then you would go
on a predictable route. It's like they're not an interstate obviously,
but you would still be going on a predictable route
and you would then probably predictably stop at one of
like three or four towns somewhere down the line, right,
whether depending on whatever your stamina and supply situation was,

(22:55):
so all you would have to do is just go like, big, Okay,
he was last seen here, and you say he left,
all right, we'll go fucking check X Y and the
next couple of towns, and when he's not, when they've
never seen him, we just have to go back that you,
that's the last place he was seen was your fucking house.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
How many days does that take to like, I gotta
go aho, months, gotta go horseback to the next town.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Oh yeah, you get away with the line and come
back and get away with this.

Speaker 4 (23:21):
But there's no no proof of anything at this point.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
These first few missing travelers did not raise an overall
alarm in the area, as it was not uncommon for
men to continue their journey westward during these days. As
more time passed, the disappearances became more frequent, and by
the spring of eighteen seventy three, the region had become
striped with rumors, and travelers began to avoid the trail altogether.

Speaker 4 (23:44):
I mean it gets to a point where, yeah, word spreads.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
But also do you think it's like a mountain lion
is attacking people or do you assume as a witch lady.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Or also natives too, like not all of them went
to Oklahoma.

Speaker 4 (23:57):
Yeah, very true.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
You can always just laying the natives.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
You can't to an extent, I want to go down
at trail, right, don't go now. But at the same time,
eventually they'll send in the cavalry and the literal cavalry. Yeah,
and then the natives are dealt with, and then people
are still disappearing, like it was the naves. Was like, no,
they killed every baby in that TP. I don't think

(24:23):
it was the native.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yes, it wasn't them, Yeah, like, oh, it must have
been some osc guys. Sorry other sorry for the gender
tornado with the tornado they happened or a mountain lion.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
Mountain lion is a tornado tornado line.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
When neighboring community started to make slenderous accusations, the Osage
Township called a meeting held at the Harmony Grove Schoolhouse
in March to see what, if anything, could be done
about Seventy five people attended the gathering, including both Bender men.
The discussion began guarding the ten people who were reported missing,
including a well known Independence physician named doctor William H.

Speaker 4 (25:07):
York Strong name it's a good name. So if it's
a doctor's name, doctor, you're gonna believe doctor. I would
trust him. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
With the full realization that there was a major problem
in their township, the group decided to search every farmstead
between Big Hill Creek and Drum Creek. The Benders remained
silent when most of the attendees volunteered to have their
premises searched.

Speaker 4 (25:30):
So everyone else was like, you can check my place,
no bones here, But also like, what are they gonna dogs?
I guess how are they gonna find a buried body?
But if you just bury it in a field, what
do you.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
You got the manpowder? You're gonna dig the whole field up?

Speaker 4 (25:52):
Why not you need to.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Dig up a football field up?

Speaker 3 (25:55):
At this time? What else do you have to do?
I figure it out.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
I'm gonna go.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
One of my favorite things to talk about with history
when people were like, how did these ancient people figure
out the constellations or mapped their pyramids?

Speaker 2 (26:10):
They had nothing else to do?

Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, nothing. There was nothing on television because there was
no television, I phone.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
All you had to do was that shit.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
They did leave like YELP reviews, though back then that
was pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
They even have cool sports.

Speaker 4 (26:27):
Er walking, there was walking sports.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
They were walking up until the nineteen hundreds.

Speaker 4 (26:33):
Yeah, I mean, it's just they had nothing else to
do but be productive. Yeah. An, what's funny is is that,
like even back then, most people hated reading. Yeah, it
was your only form of entertainment, and people were still
just like this sucks due to this day.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
In Afghanistan, like the villages get bored and they just
like build walls. They'll just like build a random like
three foot wall in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Or if you're I mean when I was a kid,
I would dig a hole.

Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah, they do that. They go to the beach, you
dig a hole, build walls, build hole. I heard that
they were Were you deployed to Afghanistan?

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (27:06):
Yeah, so I heard that they were excellent thrower rock throwers,
like they could just hit anything.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
Yeah, dude, I'm saying I was deployed in Afghanis standing
in that outfit? What's just it's just a funny visual.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
No, my buddy got domed with like a kid with
a brick like in the turret of like a gun,
like a gun truck, like do like a twelve year
old with a brick. Yeah, just domed him and he's like, thanks,
I guess another kid. Eventually we went from like manning
a turret to have a control system with a camera,

(27:42):
like a camera and a gun. One kid hit the
camera and then cracked it with the with the rock,
so we had to manually get up in the turret.
At that point where this is this is fun, you know,
yeah fuck that. Yeah, but they're like good throwers.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
No, So I I was talking goods. I was talking
to I wonder if you get like a scout out there, like, yeah, that.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
Has been a joke for the whole war on Terror
that we got it. We gotta adopt one of these kids.

Speaker 4 (28:08):
I talked to, Uh, I'm talking to some vet who
is deploying Afghanston years and years ago. I mean this
was like ten years ago at least, and we just
talked about random shit. I was like, you know what
I was I've had a theory on is that, Like
I wonder if like most countries soldiers, including and especially
in the Middle East are like shitty at throwing grenades
because like they don't grow up throwing like a baseball
or anything like that. And he was like, dude, let

(28:29):
me tell you about these fucking kids. Yeah, he said that,
like for fun, him and his buddies, like in his
unit or whatever, would just have like contests to hit
like a bottle with a rock. And he was like,
they've murdered us every time. I mean they he was like,
they were so fucking accurate with any sized rock anything.
I mean they were just because what else do you
have to do? Yeah, they literally build walls, dig holes,

(28:51):
right Like he was like the he's actually kind of
dude that. He was like, the.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
Accuracy with these kids arms. So I wonder give those
Afghanis pig skins, let him sling, give them a scholarship
they play for Bam the.

Speaker 4 (29:03):
Dogistanis of football.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Think.

Speaker 4 (29:06):
I do think that football is the way to go,
because I don't know that they have the v LO
for baseball. Unless they can just locate. They got accuracy, right, yeah,
if they I mean, if they want to go Greg
Maddox and just be location location locations.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Jamie Moyer picking the spots, dude, honestly, actually fuck fuck football.

Speaker 4 (29:20):
Yeah they need to.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
We need to get a whole bunch.

Speaker 4 (29:22):
Of Afghany Maddox dudes in here. Just pick painting the black.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
It's probably not that hard. I think you just go
there and take them.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, you gotta zig while everyone else is zagging.

Speaker 4 (29:32):
I don't think.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
Anyone's It's like it's like a duck in a pond.

Speaker 4 (29:35):
You can just take it.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Like right now, the big baseball is you got to
hit three digits. You need to have a guy that
throws gas one hundred miles an hour. No, we're getting
Afghanis to throw seventy five. But they're hitting every corner.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
And they wear cool hats.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, you teach them how to throw a curve.

Speaker 4 (29:50):
Do locations all you need. V loo's overrated. Vlo's what
you have, what vllas, what you achieve or what you
go for.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
They have nothing you don't when you're throwing in sweepers,
they're throwing sliders.

Speaker 4 (30:02):
That's why these dudes today, they don't know how to pitch.
That's why it's all it's all one hundred mile an
hour pitches.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
That's why their arms explode.

Speaker 4 (30:07):
Yeah, get the exact Ghaney kids in here. Yeah, throwing
eighty five Peyton Black.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
I think that's the future.

Speaker 4 (30:16):
I mean, we currently have baseball academies in the Dominican
Republican shit like, how much really crazier in Afghanistan? Be
I mean they're in gnarly parts of the Dominican Republic.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Maybe maybe tap into Haiti.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
I don't even think they can afford Rocks and Haiti
to be honest.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
After this, you know, meeting their neighbor, Billy Tole, the neighbor,
the Benders noticed the inn was abandoned and their family
animals unfed. Toll reported the news to Leroy F. Dick,
the township trustee, and a search party was soon formed,
which included doctor Yorke's brother, Colonel am York.

Speaker 4 (30:59):
Leroy Dick is an unfortunate name, Lee Wererot.

Speaker 3 (31:03):
Dick's a great name. I I honestly want to name
one of my sons Lee Roy. I think it's a
cool name.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
Get get someone pregnant. I gotta make sure, I gotta
make sure it works. Yeah, you gotta do a test run. Yeah.
And then do you have an addic? Do I I
can find one?

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (31:23):
Actually I do have a Yeah, I have an addict. Perfect.
It used to be haunted.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
Got all your basis It used to I used to
have a haunted attict for like the first year I
left in my house and we then we banished it.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
You exercise it.

Speaker 4 (31:34):
I'm serious.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, actually I was talking about earlier, Like she did
that at my house. It was great, all right, look
at you. It was really cool in German or no,
not not that one. Her name was Madeline and she
like had like a possum skull that she like carried
in her person ship.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Did it go into the skull? You have do trapped
in the skull?

Speaker 4 (31:54):
And that'd be cool. I'd love that. That would be
pretty sweet. I'll ask her, you fucking front of the
possum skull.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
We just make it, watch you.

Speaker 4 (32:03):
We did.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
When the When the men arrived to the property, they
found the cabin empty of food, clothing, and personal possessions,
a terrible smell inside the abandon and also met them.
A trap door nailed hut was discovered on the cabin floor.
Probably in it open, the men found six a six
foot deep hole filled with clotted blood, causing a terrible odor.

Speaker 4 (32:28):
Oh what it was just blood.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
However there were bodies. There were no bodies in the hole.
It was just a pit of blood, pit of blood.
Little trap.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
They just lived in that blood smell.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
No, it's underneath. It was a it was under the house.

Speaker 4 (32:42):
But yeah, you can still smell that they walked so
they walked in and smelled it.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
If it's a latch, doors, it's a piece of wood.
If it's a plank, yeah, it's a plank with a latch.
You're smelling it's coming right through.

Speaker 4 (32:53):
That's gnarly. So what they were just like slitting throats
and draining them into this fucking hole. Also kind of okay.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
The men physically moved the entire cabin to the side
and began to search beneath. They moved the cabin, well,
I mean they picked it up, all right. Again, let's
get back to our what we were talking about. What
else do they have to do, like we need to
get underneath this?

Speaker 4 (33:16):
Just just pick up.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
They got nothing else.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
They call it fifty men from the town to move
this house, and they just ride on horseback for three
days to move this house.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, why not. Unfortunately, no bodies were found there either. Continuing,
they began to dig around the cabin, especially in the
area the benders had utilized as a vegeta vegetable garden
and orchard. They finally found their first body.

Speaker 4 (33:42):
So they figured that the benders couldn't couldn't help, but
use these bodies as fertilizer.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
Wait, are these the Bloody Benders?

Speaker 2 (33:49):
These are the Bloody Bend?

Speaker 4 (33:50):
Oh shit, I just picked that up. I know, I
know of the story.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
I don't know anything about it, but I've heard the
name Bloody Benders.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
I think there's a TV series about it. I don't
know if it ever like got traction, gotcha?

Speaker 4 (34:02):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (34:03):
They found the first body buried head downward and its
feet scarcely covered, so the feet were towards the ground.
It was just upside down.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
That's cool.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Why the corpse.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
With Yeah, that's probably pretty chill.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
The corpse was that of doctor William H.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
Yorke. That seems like a tough hold a dick. No
the cool name. Guy's dead.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Fuck his skull bludgeoned and his throat cut from ear
to ear.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
So yeah, you're right throat blood into the hole.

Speaker 4 (34:34):
So you you bang him over the head to make
him unconscious or whatever what, drain him in the kitchen
your blood hole. Yeah, and then fucking bury him head
first in the most insulting way possible, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
Most convenient way, I'd say, though, it feels like a
tough hole a dick, Like when you when you go
like six feet deep and like five feet wide for
like a body, or like six feet wide for a
body that's like six by six, nw'res going six feet
straight down?

Speaker 4 (35:03):
Bought it being bought a boom? I get yeah, I guess.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
The digging continued The next day. Nine other bodies and
numerous dismembered body parts were found, including that of a
woman and a little girl. Of course, the burial site
was christened Hell's half Acre, and another brother of doctor York,
a lawyer and state senator residing in Independence, offered a one

(35:27):
thousand dollars reward for information leading to the Bender family's arrest.
On May seventeenth, Governor Thomas Osborne added to that mount
by offering a two thousand dollars reward for the apprehension
of all four.

Speaker 4 (35:40):
Oh so they were gone, Yeah, they left, they died.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
They were like, oh.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
I thought they were still there, just like we don't
know what this body they got. They went so funny.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
They went to the meeting and they got home and
were like, we gotta go.

Speaker 4 (35:51):
This is it's not gonna.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
And let me guess one town over, no one.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Need Yeah, literally where do the some murder spread fast,
and thousands of people flocked to the site, including news
reporters from as far as away as New York and Chicago.
The Bender cabin was ripped apart by souvenir hunters, right
down to the bloody bricks that line the cellar.

Speaker 4 (36:13):
I gotta say, so, this is the type of thing
we talk about all the time on the show where
it's like you talk about today how people are like
so craving and and like shameless and stuff like that,
But it was, it's always been worse. This is the
This is the most polite we and and and humane
we have ever been in human history. It's not even close.

(36:37):
Well maybe we've dipped a little bit, but like overall
the graph is trending massively upwards. They're a little you
can get a little like little dips, a little dip,
but like for the most part, it's it's all up.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
Because that's insane.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
Like what people are just taking pieces of the house
and be like I got a piece of the bloody
Bender resident.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Right, like a crime site. Isn't it cool? A toddler
was more in this room? Isn't that cool?

Speaker 4 (37:01):
Would you not do that?

Speaker 2 (37:03):
No?

Speaker 4 (37:05):
What I would definitely do that.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
I would be like, I wouldn't even go.

Speaker 4 (37:10):
First off, I would be like, yeah, I don't want
to go to where they fucking cut a slit a
fucking eight year old's throat and drained your body. Feels
not chill.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
The Benders were, of course, not what they appeared to be.
They weren't even truly a family. The only ones related
were Ma and Kate Bender, so.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
The rest was just like a creepy It was like
a creepy coven.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
This is like a Wild West group.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
Okay, that's even cooler.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
When the visitor stopped for a meal, they were seated
at the table with their backs to the large canvas
separating the inn from the living quarters. Kate would begin
to charm the men with their social skills, flirting or
revealing her psychic gifts. As the men gave their full
attention to the allureing, Kate, Paw and John Bender, hiding
behind the canvas, would strike the unsuspected traveler in the

(38:01):
skull with a hammer. Mob Bender and Kate would rifle
the body for money, push him through the trap door
into the hole below the cabin, where Kate would slip
their throat. The body would then be buried in the
garden behind the house at night. So they had a routine. Yeah,
I mean they got it. You get, you get, you
want it. Had a playbook. Yeah, you want to.

Speaker 4 (38:22):
Sort of like do it by the book. You want
to just make it quick and clean, and yeah, this
is quick and clean. Way back then, this is oh yeah,
this is incredible. I don't know why, Like who's buying
the sheep a pit of clotted blood or.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Just walking into the inn and smelling. Uh, was awful
in here, eight months of blood. Yeah, but I have
nowhere else to go, I guess.

Speaker 4 (38:46):
Oh, yeah, that's just stuff. It's the eighteen hundreds.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
We have this new thing called the sewage system. Yeah,
oh yeah, that's well.

Speaker 4 (38:56):
It's terrible in here, but suppose it smells terrible everywhere.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Now. When doctor Yorke went missing, he had two brothers,
one living in Fort Scott and the other in Independence.
Both knew of his travel plans, and when he failed
to return home, an all out search began for the
missing doctor. So they killed the wrong guy. Yeah, Colonel
am york led a colonel. Yeah, he's a colonel. Let
a contingency of some fifty men began questioning every traveler

(39:21):
that came across the trail and stopped at the area
of the homesteads. One of the places was the Bender
in This is when they were still there. The Benders
tried to help by admitting that doctor York had stopped
at their place, but convinced the search party that he
had left and probably got marked by Indians.

Speaker 4 (39:41):
Witchcraft. Tell as much. Yeah, you gotta tell as much
truth as possible, you know what I mean, you.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Tell you can't you can't be like he was never here. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:48):
Yeah, you gotta tell the truth right up to the
point where you can't tell the truth.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
Even with her mystic abilities, Kate attempted to search for
the missing doctor to throw off any suspense of herself.

Speaker 4 (40:00):
Oh yeah, that's I just I would find that really
suspicious if she was like, oh, yeah, the doctor was
here and he left and I maybe was kolb by Indians.
But I'm a psychic, I'm super psychic. Do you want
to help find She was known for being a psychic
before that, so she trusted, like, I don't know, maybe
something happened at the place where the weird chick is.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
The woman that's accused of being satanic. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
h yeah, yeah, Oh.

Speaker 4 (40:26):
The chick that was accused of being fucking Satan might
know something.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
After Colonel Yorke's visit and the meeting with the Harmony
Groove Schoolhouse, the Bender family fled. Only a few days later,
the homestead was found abandoned and the search party began
to discover the grizzly remains of the bodies. So they're exposed,
like immediately.

Speaker 4 (40:46):
They find them out.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Yeah, well they have the blood pit. Yeah. The diggers
were astonished to what they found, and it became one
of the America's first mass murder burial grounds. As body
as her body was uncovered. Ten bodies were found in
the Bender's apple orchard, including doctor York and the people
they have been searching for.

Speaker 4 (41:06):
I'm sure the shitthole papers love that. All these new
like again, like to your point, like all the people
from New York and Chicago, Saint Louis, New Orleans, I'm
sure every fucking Boston at Philly, everywhere, we all came
down and got a brick.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
Would you eat an apple pie from the murder applefield,
like the fertilizer of like humans.

Speaker 4 (41:27):
Not a murdered one, but if you if it was
like one of those you know, like they do that
now where it's like you can be buried with a tree.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Oh, if you're like fertilized, maybe drink some cider.

Speaker 4 (41:37):
I would definitely do, like a murder sider. I wouldn't
do any murder siders a good name. I wouldn't do
any murder apples. That's a great that's a great saturn name.
I would do like animal consenting human apple situation. I
don't like apple. That's more wholesome. Yeah, apple juice, like
apple juice.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
I would definitely do, Like, Hey, this was found with
like twenty five bodies next to this tree.

Speaker 4 (42:02):
We made a pot. I gotta tell them afterwards, be like,
just I'm so sorry, I forgot to mention this was
from a vineyard that was a serial killer family was
using their murdered victims to fertilize the grapes. I'm so
sorry if we forgot to mention that earlier. You've been
drinking murdered wine.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
It's literally called murder rape vineyard. And there was like
we forgot to tell you guys, people were actually.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
Murdered murdering a savage John beautiful. I love that.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, one of the victims mister Launcher and his daughter,
who was just eight years old. It was a little
little grisome there. The little girl's body was found to
have multiple injuries, none of them would have caused her death,
and it was speculated the poor girl may have been
buried alive.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
Not cool, sweet, take back the once again, take back
the murder wine.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Eat that apple pie, you eat that murder wine. Of
the discovery of her remains, the Kansas City Times reported
one arm was broken, the breastbone had been driven in,
the right knee had been wrenched from its socket, and
the leg doubled up under the body.

Speaker 4 (43:17):
She just playing football.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
Nothing like this sickening series of crimes had ever been
recorded in the whole history of the country. That's what
they claim recorded. This is them recorded.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
I guess it's only on white people, not the natives.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Yeah. Other bodies found in the garden were those of
Henry Mackenzie's mutilated remains, three men named Ben Brown, W. F. Mccroatey,
and John Geary.

Speaker 4 (43:44):
How they identify all these people? Do?

Speaker 2 (43:46):
They keep playing a guest book they might have, as
well as unidentified male and female. So they didn't figure
out who these.

Speaker 4 (43:54):
The fact that they identified. Actually fucking incredible.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Boyle's body was found in the well.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
That's a horrible place to put a body if you
plan on continuing to live there.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yeah, I'm hoping it was like, hey, we murdered him,
throw him in the well.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
There, then we're out.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
That was maybe there last victim.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
Yeah him, it's easier just eat and then yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yeah, that's kind of like what the Mongolians would do, right,
Oh yeah, just destroy town and just fuck the wells.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
Japanese they would poison everything so that hey, come, well,
you're welcome to come on back once we're gone, but
good luck.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
You gotta restart.

Speaker 4 (44:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Dismember parts of several other victims were also discovered but
could never be identified. Four other bodies with crushed goals
and slit throats were found outside the property in Drum
Creek and on this round in Prairie. For all these deaths,
the Benders gained only about like forty six undred dollars,
sound about right. Two teams of horses and wagons, a

(44:54):
pony and a saddle.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
So those are worth like ten grand.

Speaker 4 (44:58):
Yeah, that's actually so they're that's a pretty good.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Yeah, And they're not doing a whole lot to like
gain that like investment, you're just killing someone you're on
like going to work and like, oh I spent three
months at work and got four grand.

Speaker 4 (45:11):
Like you count. If you count cooking the meal and
cleaning the dishes and taking the hole, you're talking three
hours of work max. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
Because some of the travelers carried nothing of value, it
was widely speculated the Benders killed simply for the thrill
of it, probably as were of the grisome murders spread
more and more travelers came forward to tell their own
stories of a narrow escape, including one gentleman named William Pickering.
When he sat, or when he refused to sit with

(45:45):
his back to the canvas because of it's disgusting stains.
Pickering said that Kate Bender threatened him with a knife,
so he fled the premises.

Speaker 4 (45:55):
Perfect so it was stained with blood and brains, and
he was like, this canvas is gross? Can I sit
over there? Can I stare?

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Can I stare at the canvas instead of yeah, yeah,
while they eat this succulent meal.

Speaker 4 (46:11):
They're just there's just it's gross. It smells like shit.
There's blood under way. See what everyone I don't know
maybe you've slaughtered a pig or I don't know what
you do here, but like, can I just sit anywhere else?
She's immediately like.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
Doesn't have a good poker face.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
No.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
The Catholic priest said he fled when he saw one
of the Bender men concealing a large hammer. He's like,
I think he's gonna use that.

Speaker 4 (46:38):
Yeah, why you have that, sir? It's ten o'clock at night.
What you what are you hammering here? It's seen a
nail in hours.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
After, following a fresh trail of wagon tracks, a search
party found that the Benders had gone to the town nearby,
a Fayre, some twelve miles to the north. They purchased
tickets to Humbolt on the north bound Levenworth, Lawrence and
Galveston trains. Several days later, the Bender's team and wagon
were found a short distance away, and the horses nearly starved.

(47:12):
Upon further investigation, Captain James B. Ransom, the trains conductor,
said that John Junior and Kate disembarked and took the Missouri,
Kansas and Texas Railroad train south.

Speaker 4 (47:25):
How would he know to the Red River?

Speaker 2 (47:27):
He's the country near Dennison, Texas. But like he was
the conductor. He's the captain, meets everyone on the train.

Speaker 4 (47:34):
It's a fucking train.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
I think he just thought he solemn.

Speaker 4 (47:38):
Yeah, he doesn't know what like that would be. Like
that is literally like an airline pilot, like a fucking
Southwest pilot, be like, oh yeah, oh Rob Fox, I
know him, so I'll him get on the plane backwards
half up to Saint Los already had a layover into Denver.

(48:00):
Then as far as I know that Denver flight was
taking them up to Van Cooby, you don't fucking know,
Pot we got conducted.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
There's no fucking shit. I refuse to believe that. Allegedly,
the pair then fled to a tough outlaw colony along
the border of Texas and New Mexico.

Speaker 4 (48:19):
That sounds cool. They're like, oh you guys murderers too, Yeah,
tough Outlaw county.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Meanwhile, Mom Pap Bender continued to the north of Kansas City,
where it is believe they transferred to a train headed
to Saint Louis, So you're boys. Attempts to capture the
blood thirsty family were immediately made by both law officers
and vigilantes alike, though no one ever collected the rewards offered.

(48:48):
Rumors and several parties who had captured them and killed
the Benders began to fly. One vigilante group claimed to
have shot down the men and Ma Bender and burned
Kate alive as the witch they believed her to be.
That's certainly a lie. Yeah, in no way that's true.
It was definitely a lie.

Speaker 4 (49:06):
Also, wouldn't you just why wouldn't you collect a reward?

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (49:09):
Yeah, like it's bullshit.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Well I think they were trying to collect the reward, okay,
oh yeah, yeah we burner, Yeah, we we had nothing left.
Another group claim they caught the Benders whiles given to
the South and lynched them before throwing their bodies into
the river.

Speaker 4 (49:24):
And they're like money, we did be yeah, you had.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Another group claim to have killed the Benders during a
gunfight and buried their bodies on the prairie. None of
these tales were confirmed, nor were bodies found, so most
thought the Benders had managed to escape. For years, suddings
of Mob Bender and Kate were reported, and in eighteen
eighty nine, two women were extradited from Michigan on the charge.

(49:49):
The pair were jailed, but the case was dropped due
to a lack of evidence that.

Speaker 4 (49:54):
They were the same people.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
Yeah yeah, of the family. Pallbender was to have believed.
He was believed to be a man named John Flickinger
from Germany or Holland. Though he allegedly committed suicide in
eighteen eighty four in Lake Michigan. Others believed Mom Kate

(50:15):
murdered him because he had fled Cherry Vale with all
the cash and valuables that they had taken from their victims.

Speaker 4 (50:22):
Okay, so they chased him down.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Mab Bender was born Almira Meek in New York and
married as a teenager to a man named George Griffith.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
How old was he?

Speaker 2 (50:37):
After bearing him dozens of children, including Kate, Mister Griffith
suddenly died, some said of a bad place on his head,
resembling a dent that might have been made with a hammer. Afterwards,
she reportedly remarried several times and killed each husband she
had and three of her older children so they could

(51:00):
not testify against.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Her, and they all had so this was before.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
They were the Bender family.

Speaker 4 (51:06):
Good Lord, so she had a rat for real.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
John Junior was found to have been a man named
John GiB Hart though most were led to believe Johnny
Kate were brother and sister, others said they sometimes passed
as man and wife. The two were known to have
a relationship, and further tales came out about Kate being pregnant.

Speaker 4 (51:31):
Yeah, they probably banged. He probably got a pregnant whatever
their murderers, And she was like, yeah, fuck whoever you want,
even if he was or brother, Like, they're.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Fucking what did they do with the kid. They bashed
the baby's brains and they put.

Speaker 4 (51:43):
Him in an attic. Just what why did they waited?
She had the whole birth and then.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
Bashed the baby's brand and said, well, what would you do?

Speaker 4 (51:55):
You can have an abortion back then, Oh, all right,
you can board it.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
I think they wanted to do it.

Speaker 4 (52:00):
They wanted to do it.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
I think they wanted to hammer a baby's head in.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
It's not hard.

Speaker 3 (52:05):
I guess it's probably the easiest hammering they've done.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
Boy, it's one blow.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
Yeah, it's kind of it's bad luck if he only
if it takes a couple You're like, oh, did you
saw the worst thing I've ever heard?

Speaker 2 (52:17):
Go on, Jesus, nothing else has gotten to the eight
year old.

Speaker 4 (52:21):
They no that fucked me up. But a bashing an
infant's brains in, I don't know if you've ever been
around an infant, I tried not to.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
Well, they didn't have helmets back then, so maybe they're
just trying to reshape its head.

Speaker 4 (52:33):
I don't. I mean, well, probably someone did that, but
who could say he used.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
The ball peen the back part of the hammer to
fix a dent here and.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
There After the Benders escape. One detective who had closely
followed all the leads, said that he had traced John
Junior to the Outlaw country along the Texas New Mexico border,
where he found that the criminal had died of a stroke.
So didn't really get his comeuppance.

Speaker 4 (52:59):
Now, Oh no, it doesn't sound like any of them did.
Sounds like they all did it and then lived pretty
normal lives.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Yeah. Kate was the fifth child of my Bender and
was born Eliza Griffith. Eventually she remarried and went by
the name Sarah Eliza Davis. While working at the Bender
In with her family, she earned more money for the
group as a prostitute, adding an additional amount to the
traveler's bill for the privilege of lying with her, so

(53:32):
not only was she a witch that could also have
psychic abilities and see in the future, But she'd also
bang you.

Speaker 4 (53:40):
She would suck the soul out of people, right, and
then they would kill her kill them afterwards.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
Yeah, she's fucking so bad, right, who would I traveled
for six days, havn't showered.

Speaker 4 (53:50):
In three weeks?

Speaker 3 (53:51):
Okay, Like, I guess if you let's bone and then.

Speaker 4 (53:53):
Killed, just want to get laid, like sure, but like,
just murder them. You don't have to fuck them for
money because once you murder them, you have all their
money is yours, all of it.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
I think she just liked it.

Speaker 4 (54:08):
That's fine, that's fine. But let's be clear here. She
was not a prostitute.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
It was an unnecessary step.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
She's a good witch, dude.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
She wanted dick, that's all we just do. I guess
John Junior wasn't fucking bringing it clearly. In the end,
it was Kate who was primarily blamed for the numerous
bloody murders that, even at her young age, was the
inspiration for the crimes. So she also they don't really

(54:38):
know what happened to her. The sensational tales and rumors
of the Benders continued well into the twentieth century. But
what happened to them remains one of the greatest unsolved
mysteries of the Old West, and.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
That what's unsolved? Oh, just what happened to them?

Speaker 2 (54:52):
What happened to them? Where they go? Yeah, fair enough,
Like they know the one dude died of a stroke,
one guy died of an alleged suicide, but they don't
know why Appnicat or mob Barker or mob Bender. We
did an episode on mab Barker with Jake, so it's
I had to like double check to make sure it
wasn't the same family. Yeah, it's like, did we do
this episode a lot of moss a mob Barker. It

(55:15):
was a crime family. That's awesome, This mob Bender.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
They are thriving and have children among us right now.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Yeah, if you live in West Texas, you might be
related to these people.

Speaker 4 (55:27):
If you're there's a non Zerola country, yeah absolutely.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
If you're buy that like New Mexico border, you're out
towards Lubbock.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
Yeah, and also you shouldn't be there. Not a fun place.

Speaker 4 (55:38):
No kind of.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
Kind of makes sense. Good they sought refuge there.

Speaker 4 (55:42):
But.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
Yeah, that was a fun little tale. Huh.

Speaker 4 (55:46):
Yeah. I like the part where they bashed the infantas
skull and buried an eight year old lot that's pretty.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Sweet after breaking her legs to the point where they
could fold it over.

Speaker 4 (55:55):
Her located way for an eight year old to die.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
And like what was it like a stomping that broke
her chest plate? Like what the fuck?

Speaker 2 (56:04):
They might have hammered her in yeah, who knows? Yeah,
getting creative.

Speaker 4 (56:08):
I do like that. The one guy was just like, ew,
your sheet's gross. Can I say somewhere else? Like everyone
else was just like, this chick's pretty hot. I'm not
gonna say anything about the sheet. Uh, like I would,
but the chick's so hot that.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
I well, maybe that's what you kind of excuse for
the sheet being gross is she's a prostitute.

Speaker 4 (56:25):
I think it was just they were just a nighbor
in general, you know what I mean, Like you you
won't say things like all right, let's say you're with
a hot girl, right and you get in her car
and for whatever reason, she's just messy and her car's
a mess. You're not gonna fucking say anything about it. No, absolutely,
Like what's your car?

Speaker 3 (56:39):
You have to like, you know, when you get a
foot and you can give like kick some soda cans.

Speaker 4 (56:42):
Yeah, exactly, you're kicking away.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
And she'll be like, oh, sorry, it's kind of and
you're like, oh.

Speaker 4 (56:46):
Dude, it's fine. I have French fries in my car too.
And then she gonna bash your fucking brains with a hammer,
but you're not gonna care because she's you know, titties, titties. Essentially,
that's what happened with them. They were all like, oh god,
she's fucking discussing the chicks hots, all right, it's fun.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Yeah, I wanna I'm gonna get late.

Speaker 4 (57:02):
Yeah, fun a brain that brains, I don't whatever, dude,
this chick's smoke show that.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
That's what they did.

Speaker 4 (57:09):
But the one guy, the neat freak guy, was like, no,
this thing's fucking fouled.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
I won't.

Speaker 4 (57:14):
I fuck you, and I'll pay to fuck you, but
I'm not sitting at it behind the sheet. This thing's
fucking gross. And also like, I'm paying you, so don't
tell me where to sit. You work for my dick
right now.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Yeah, but she laughs at all my jokes.

Speaker 4 (57:28):
Yeah, I know everyone else is a fucking simp. She's
just laughing with it. Yeah, if in her hand. Everyone else,
every other guy was like, oh, I better not blow this,
like you're not paying her, you know what I mean? Like, oh,
I want her to like not take my money all
of the sudden, the prostitute. But the one guy, the
one guy that understood everything that was happening, that was like,
this ship's gross. I'm paying you to fuck me. So

(57:50):
I don't care what you think. He lived.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
If you simps die. And that's what we learned today,
sims die. You need to call people out in their bullshit.
That's a valuable life lesson.

Speaker 4 (58:02):
That's our biggest takeaway. Who stays Hitler this fucking family?
Good lord, pick one the worst one. I don't know,
the chick. I guess she's slitting throats, the one whoever
bashed in the baby's brains? Uh?

Speaker 2 (58:17):
The chicken? The yeah, that kid?

Speaker 4 (58:19):
Hitler there, Hitler, I don't I know everyone knows this.
But if you don't have a child, like truly, I
don't think you understand. You can't understand how I.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
Have a dog?

Speaker 4 (58:33):
How yeah dog dead it is? You have to be
devoid of humanity to do that, like vacant.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
You don't have a soul. You don't crazy.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
So I was going another route. I was gonna go
with the train conductor who just made up ship that
they would north.

Speaker 4 (58:56):
Also they went north southeast.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
He spreading this information.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
Yeah, so they were never found because she's like, oh yeah,
I saw that they were going up.

Speaker 4 (59:05):
Told me that going on in the Kansas City Lawn, California.
She's the funk up. You don't know, you don't know,
that's the hitler.

Speaker 3 (59:13):
Yeah, they could have been brought to justice. But all
my past, and also go back to the beginning of this,
I think she is proper with magical powers.

Speaker 4 (59:26):
She got away.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
I can't fuck you guess clearly.

Speaker 4 (59:30):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
And then we'll add a question onto this.

Speaker 4 (59:33):
Would you.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Would you take your shot with Kate?

Speaker 3 (59:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, nothing, nothing would stop me, not even
a bloody tarp.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Especially back of all back then too, She's got like
these mystic powers. There's like an aura about her. We've
all had sex with crazy chicks.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
She has a knife to my throat. I've been traveling
for six days.

Speaker 4 (59:51):
Yeah, we've all had We've all had sex with mentally
uneven women. Some would say most we know what that's like. Dude,
I had imagine that level of I had.

Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
A reverse Mexican lady I dated. Well, normally they try
and stab us. She gave me a knife and told
me to stab her. That's actually true. We got into
a big fight.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
And because you wouldn't, she grabbed a knife.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
I'm not gonna She's like, oh, I'm gonna die, and
then she like handed it to me to kill her
because she was like suicidal.

Speaker 4 (01:00:25):
Oh it's pretty cool. That's why you have that's why
you subscribed to the Patriot. Did you do it? No?

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
Uh, I just think about it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
I went home and I was like, I'm sorry, we're
breaking up now we can't.

Speaker 4 (01:00:38):
The only thing I can kill is this relationship. Yeah,
do you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Fuck her after?

Speaker 4 (01:00:42):
Though?

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Well, you know, we were like dating for like months,
like we were dating for months. No, No, that that night,
I just went home and broke up.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
But I was wondering if you pushed through it, I
probably could have should have.

Speaker 4 (01:00:53):
I know very I don't think you should have, but
I know you could have.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
Yeah, we were dating. I was like, Oh, she's like,
not a crazy Mexican that wants to stab me. Fast
forward like six months, she wanted me to stuff her
funny story. She reverse carded her own race, and I
was like kind of like that, but also I'm going home,
and with.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
That we'll leave you for today. That is the story
of the Bloody Benders Lopez, Scott. It's always a pleasure, yeah, always,
so much good luck on your quests.

Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
Yeah, oh, I have so many more quests.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
You're welcome back anytime when you're you know, when you
have some downtime, when I'm not when you're not casting.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
Ding my chariot through town and casting love spells that
sometimes turned the fireball and you got to roll four
D tens.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
The risk you take. Yeah, yeah, anyway, for Scott Lopez
and Rob Fox, I'm damn Chester and you just got
a saucer.