November 20, 2025 • 50 mins
Roadhouse Of No Return
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Episode 40 takes a look at the legend of a Kansas family that killed at least 11 visitors to their roadhouse in the early 1870s. They aroused suspicion by choosing as a victim a well-known physician, whose family soon pulled out all stops in a search until they uncovered his body, along with 10 missing travelers, on the Bender property. The Bender Family was nowhere to be found, and never were. Sightings and even arrests were regular for many years, even into the next century, but the second act of this episode purports to tell the true story of what happened to the mass murdering hostelers.
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Jump To The AD-FREE Safe House Edition
Episode 40 takes a look at the legend of a Kansas family that killed at least 11 visitors to their roadhouse in the early 1870s. They aroused suspicion by choosing as a victim a well-known physician, whose family soon pulled out all stops in a search until they uncovered his body, along with 10 missing travelers, on the Bender property. The Bender Family was nowhere to be found, and never were. Sightings and even arrests were regular for many years, even into the next century, but the second act of this episode purports to tell the true story of what happened to the mass murdering hostelers.
Hear more stories about SERIAL KILLERS
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.
You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.
We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:
If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!
For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat with PULP MAGAZINES with two new stories every week.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Lawrence, Kansas, May eighth, eighteen seventy three, the body of
doctor William Henry Yorke was found about ten o'clock in
a plowed field of about an acre in extent and
within two hundred yards of the cabin of the Bender family.
The murdered man had been buried face downward in a
(00:26):
hole about four feet deep and eighteen inches wide. The
back of the skull was found to have been broken
and both temples crushed in as if by blows with
a shoehammer. One eye had been driven from its socket,
and the victim's throat was cut. A shoehammer found in
the house fitted the indentations in the back of the head.
An attempt had been made to conceal the grave by
(00:49):
plowing over it, but the earth had been thrown in
so loosely that an iron endgate rod was easily thrust
into the excavation. The remains were not so far decomposed
as to prevent their easy recognition by State Senator Edward Yorke,
the dead man's brother. The stench arising from the deserted
cabin led to the belief that other dead bodies were
(01:11):
concealed beneath it, and it was removed from its foundations.
Three bodies were found beneath the house and four graves
in different parts of the little field. Two of the
victims were men and one a little girl. The bodies
of the men, like that of doctor Yorke, were stripped
to their shirts, showing that their clothing was partly an
object in murdering them. A little girl had on a
(01:34):
dress an apron. All the victims had evidently been killed
by a blow in the back of the head. All
had their throats cut, except for the little girl. The
scenes of these awful disclosures is six miles northeast of Cherryvale,
on a railroad claim occupied about two years ago by
a family named Bender, consisting of John Bender and son
(01:55):
and his wife and her daughter, both understood to be
children by former messages. The young woman, Kate Bender, claimed
to be a medium and to possess wonderful powers, and
was the leading spirit of the family. The sudden flight
of the family about three weeks ago, leaving their stock
behind them and leaving their team at their probably excited suspicion.
(02:18):
They bought tickets at Thayer for Humboldt. They are being
vigorously hunted for in every direction we have given what
we know to be correct, and have avoided everything not
fully corroborated. We were on the ground and viewed the
premises and remains with our own eyes, and converse with
those who are personally cognizant of what was related. The
(02:41):
reader can supply his own ejaculations of horror. True crime
historian presents serial killer clips original newspaper accounts of America's
most prolific murderers. This time, we're looking at the legend
(03:06):
of a Kansas family that killed at least eleven visitors
to their roadhouse in the early eighteen seventies. They aroused
suspicion by choosing as a victim a well known physician,
whose family soon pulled out all stops in a search
until they uncovered his body along with ten other missing
travelers on the Bender property. The Bender family was nowhere
(03:29):
to be found. Sightings and even arrests were regular for
many years, but the second act of this episode purports
to tell the true story of what happened to the
mass murdering hostelers from a man who was there. I'm
true crime historian Richard O. Jones, and I give you
the bloody Benders. On Monday last a brother of the
(04:00):
lately murdered doctor Yorke received intelligence that a family named
Bender had left their claim near Big Hill Creek in
Lebette County, where they were running a little store for
the purpose of supplying travelers with such refreshments as they
might need. While passing, their departure was noticed by someone
who had passed, noticing that a calf which had been
tied up had starved to death. A closer inspection showed
(04:22):
that all were gone, with what movables could be carried
in a wagon. The neighbors concluded to look further into
the matter, and, having learned that a team had been
abandoned at Thayer some three weeks before, some of them
immediately proceeded to that point and identified the team as
having belonged to the Benders. They then concluded to fully
search the premises, their suspicions being immediately aroused toward that
(04:44):
family as being the cause of so many being missed
in the neighborhood. Mister Edward Yorke, being notified, immediately proceeded
to the ground and had not been there more than
half an hour when, in passing over a dead furrow
in a little garden patch which had been plowed over.
His attention was attracted to a piece of sub soil
on the surface. Looking more closely, he discovered a straight
(05:05):
mark across the furrow where the ground was slightly sunken.
By looking closely, he was able to trace the outlines
of a grave. The end rod of a wagon was
used to probe the ground inside the lines discovered. It
was found that inside the lines it was not difficult
to thrust the rod in its full length, while outside
these lines it would not penetrate deeper than the plowed
(05:25):
ground without pressure. Digging was immediately commenced and the body
of doctor William Henry Yorke was discovered. On being uncovered,
it was found that he had been killed by blows
on the head with a blunt instrument, one on the
back of the head at the base of the brain
being sufficient to produce instant death. There were two others
on either side of the head, and his throat was
(05:45):
cut from ear to ear and so deeply that the
head was nearly severed from the body. Two hammers and
a hatchet were found on the premises, one of which
fitted the wound on the back of the head. The
premises were next visited and examined. The building as a
frame sixteen by twenty unplastered with a cloth partition separating
it into two halves. The generally accepted theory of the
(06:08):
manner of the killing is that travelers were seated in
such a manner that their heads would lean against and
indent the cloth partition which crossed the room. Someone stationed
behind the curtain would then strike them with a hammer,
and someone in the front room was ready to finish
the job. After that they were taken to the trap door,
where they were thrown in, their throats cut, and they
(06:29):
were left until night, when they were carried out and buried.
In the patch of ground above alluded to the body
of doctor Yorke was immediately recognized by Edward Yorke the
general features and by a bandage on one knee where
he had a running sore, and a bandage on one
finger of his left hand which had been mashed just
before he started on his journey. The location of the
(06:51):
place is in the northwest corner of Lebett County, on
the road to o Sage Mission and Fort Scott, about
ten miles from there and five and a half half
miles from Cherryvale. The building is out of view from
every other house and seems to have been chosen expressly
for the murderous purposes for which it has been used.
It is in a hollow or swale in the prairie,
(07:13):
far from Timber and where they could see a mile
in any direction and be in no danger of interruption
for at least half an hour. There was a stone
stable on the premises where horses could be securely hidden
until such time as they could be run off and
disposed of. After the finding of York, it was determined
to make a further search. The next day. This was done,
(07:35):
and the horrible disclosure was made that there were at
least seven other graves on the same piece of ground.
Willing hands were soon engaged at resurrecting them, and during
Wednesday the bodies of seven more victims were brought to light,
all killed in the same way disposed of in the
same manner, with the exception of the little daughter of
George W. Longcour who showed no marks of violence, but
(07:59):
is supposed to have been smothered or buried alive. George W.
Longcoor and daughter have been missing since the latter part
of December. They had started to go to Iowa from
the neighborhood of Onion Creek. Mister Longcour was a neighbor
of Doctor York and had purchased a wagon from him.
He and his daughter were buried in the same grave,
(08:21):
the daughter, eighteen months old, being placed in between its
father's feet. The father was stripped of all clothing except
his undergarments, as were all the victims, but the child
was buried with all its clothing, even to a pair
of mittens. Mister O. D. Brown was from Cedar Vale
in Howard County and had traded horses in the neighborhood
(08:42):
with a man named Johnson. He was recognized by a
silver ring which he wore and which he had shown
to Johnson. The ring, he said he had found, and
it contained some initials we could not learn. He is
supposed to have had fifty three dollars with him. W. F.
Mccrotty resided near Cedar Vale in Howard County and was
contesting a claim before the Land Office had independence. He
(09:06):
was on his way to Neosha County, where he expected
to get money to carry out his contest. He is
not supposed to have had any money with him. Another
report is that he sold his claim horses and wagon,
and together with four hundred dollars, sent him to make
his payments on his claim was possessed of about nineteen
hundred dollars. We are not inclined to credit this latter report.
(09:30):
Henry F. McKenzie of Hamilton County, Indiana has been missing
since about the fifth of December last. He was on
his road to Independence, where he was expected to locate.
He had little or no money. He had a sister
in Independence, Missus J. Thompson, by whom his body was recognized.
He was about thirty years of age. Mister Boyle was
(09:53):
supposed to be another of the victims, but was not
positively identified, although his wife, who was on the ground,
tolerably certain. He wore a homemade linen shirt, rather uncommon
in this country, and his wife said it was the
kindest shirt her husband wore. He has been missing since
December last and had started for o sage mission. There
(10:13):
was one body still unrecognized, and it is so disfigured
as to be hard to describe. He was of medium
height and appeared to be bald. On both temples about
a mile from Benders there's another grocery kept by a
man named Brockmann, against whom suspicion is attached of complicity
in the murders or of a knowledge of their having
been committed. He is said to have been a partner
(10:35):
of Benders from eighteen sixty nine to eighteen seventy one.
The people assembled were confident that he could make some
disclosures if he would, and it seemed impossible that these
crimes could be committed in such close proximity to him
without his knowledge, as his family were in the habit
of going to Benders for milk, he having a fresh cow.
It has not seem possible that one German family on
(10:57):
good terms with another should not know of its absence
for three weeks, when their claims are almost adjoining in
their houses less than a mile apart. The neighbors, believing thus,
and being determined to ferret the thing to the bottom,
took Brockmann from his house, conveyed him some eight miles
in the woods on Wednesday night, and there twice hung
(11:18):
him to a limb until life was almost extinct, in
order to force him from any knowledge of the matter
he might possess. In this they were unsuccessful. Great excitement
prevails throughout Labet and adjoining counties over this series of
diabolical murders, and if anyone is captured known to be
connected with these murders, the courts will hardly be troubled
(11:40):
with them. The Bender family must all be guilty, as
it is not possible that any could be ignorant of
what was going on. The house is located in the
middle of the prairie. No farming was carried on to
cause anyone to be away from the house. The graves
were all deep and dug in a systematic manner to
a depth of about five feet. The surface of the
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soil was kept separate from the subsoil and preserved to
cover the top. After the burials, the ground was carefully
plowed and harrowed over. The ninth murder was that of
a man named Jones, whose body was found in Drum
Creek sometime since. He was killed in the same manner
as the others, and had been hauled to the creek
and Bender's wagon, which was easy to track as one
(12:24):
wheel was dished and wobbled. He was thrust through a
hole in the ice, the ground being frozen so as
to prevent grave digging. The murders reported above are all
of a recent date, and the family having resided in
the neighborhood for four years. It is probable that half
has not been told. A singular circumstance connected with the
(12:45):
burials is that all the bodies were buried with the
left arm crossed on the breast and the right arm
lying by their side. This is supposed to be the
sign of an organized band, and that when one member
is arrested, the remainder find the money to defend the accused.
The benders consist of four persons, the old man, who
(13:05):
is a stout, burly fellow with shaggy eyebrows, his wife
not particularly different from the average German woman of low degree,
the son, who is a stout youth of some twenty
two years of age, and a daughter, Katie. The she
devil of this gang of fiends, was aged twenty one
or twenty two years. Her complexion is yellow. She has
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very high cheek bones of very sharp chin, and the
contour of her countenance is said to resemble that of
a wolf. The girls used to say she had a
wolfish face. Her hair is a light brown with a
tinge of red. She is somewhat round or stooped shoulders
and rather hollow breasted. She is rather slenderly built and
has a long, slim waist. Her ears have been pierced
(13:48):
for ear rings, but she wore none. Her eyes are
dark gray. Her nose is somewhat flat with large nostrils.
She is quick and rapid in her speech. Who pretended
to be a clairvoyant, fortune teller and a spiritualist, and
who seem to possess complete control over the balance of
the family. May ninth, eighteen seventy three, three more bodies
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have been discovered near the Bender cabin, making eleven in all.
May seventeenth, eighteen seventy three, nine days after the discovery
of the bodies. Now that the curtain of mystery, which
has so long enshrouded the damnable deeds of the Bender family,
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has been drawn aside, revealing to the public gaze the
existence in our very myths of a system of cold
blooded murdering, almost unparalleled in the annals of crime. Many
little incidents are brought back to the memory of different
ones which are now known to have a direct connection
with the doings of that murderous crew, and it seems
almost wonderful that these occurrences, mysterious in their nature, have
(15:00):
not long ago directed suspicion towards them, especially under the
excitement existing on account of so many mysterious disappearances. Some
time ago, a poor sick woman who had lived in
that neighborhood, having heard of Miss Kate Bender's professions of
medical skill, sought her services in that line. The doctors
(15:22):
prescribed for her and said she required no payment for
her services unless they proved beneficial. If we understood our
informant rightly, the sick woman went away, leaving her side
saddle as proof of her intention to remunerate the doctress
in a few days. However, finding that she had not
improved in health, she concluded to go and get her
(15:43):
side saddle, so one evening she went there for that purpose.
On arriving the house, she went in and talked a while.
After she had been there a short time, the whole
family got together in the house, closed the doors, and
all seated themselves at the table, invoked the presence of
the spirits, and proceeded to go through a series of incantations,
something after the fashion of those supposed to have been
(16:06):
indulged in by the breeders of witchcraft in its palmy days.
Each had a large butcher knife, which they would draw
across their throats and make other significant motions with, and
with a uniformity that indicated that they had been thoroughly
drilled in this spiritualistic manual of arms. The poor woman
was nearly dumb with terror, but during a lull in
(16:26):
the performance, she regained her presence of mind, and, without
any exhibition of fear, leisurely stepped out the door, leaving
her bonnet to make them think she would return. As
soon as she got outside. She moved away as fast
as possible, but had not gone far when she heard
footsteps pursuing her. She concealed herself in the grass until
her pursuer had passed her. When she crawled on her
(16:48):
hands and knees for long ways and finally got safely away.
She told the story to some of the neighbors, but
for some reason no one seemed to attach any importance
to the incident, it probably being thought that she had
become frightened at the spiritual demonstrations. Some time after this,
a lot of men were scouring that vicinity for some
clue to the disappearance of York. They stopped at a
(17:09):
man's house and made inquiries of him as what place
if any occurrences of a questionable character were likely to
take place. The incident above occurred to him all at once,
and he told them that the Benders was the only
one he knew of that could possibly be suspicioned. The
men proceeded to Benders, took young Bender into custody and
interviewed him in regard to the matter. He threw them
(17:31):
completely off the scent in a very clever manner. He
thought he could give them a clue. He took them
to a place some three miles away and showed them
where he had been shot at on last Christmas. While
he was passing there. They let him go, and of
course that clue was not worth anything to them, but
it was worth a good deal to the Benders. Mister
(17:58):
Charles Hallett, who was in our city some five or
six weeks ago, related his experience to one of our citizens.
He was on his way from Independence to this place
and stopped at a house, which, from his descriptions, must
have been the Bender place. While seated, he heard a
noise behind him, and on looking around, he saw a
man stealthily approaching him with a hammer in his hand.
(18:19):
Hallett drew his revolver and wheeled on him, and, when
he pretended to be driving a nail on the floor,
explained with a virtuously indignant air his action. Hallett told
him not to be driving any nails where he was.
A man who lived but a short distance from Bender
stopped there one day. The old man stepped up to him,
(18:40):
having a hammer in his hand, and asked him where
he lived. No doubt if the man had been a traveler,
that would have been the end of him. But it
is probable that they dared not risk murdering one of
their neighbors. Many incidents of this kind will now be
brought to the minds of different parties, who, when they
think of them, will shudder at the thought of how
near they were to meeting a terrible death in that
(19:00):
human slaughterhouse. May twenty second, eighteen seventy three, one evening,
about three months ago, a poor woman, footsore and weary,
traveling to Independence without money, stopped at the Bender Den
and asked for some supper and for privilege of resting
(19:22):
a while. She was invited in, and, being nearly exhausted,
she took her shoes and scanty wrappings off and lay
down on the bed in the back room. She soon
fell into a troubled doze, from which she was awakened
by the touch of the old hag of the den, who,
pointing to an array of pistols and double edged knives
of various sizes lying on the table, said, in the
(19:44):
spirit of hellish malignity, there your supper is ready. The
woman was motionless and breathless with terror, and as she
sank back on her bed, the devil dame picked up
the knives one by one and drew her fingers along
the sharpened blades, at the same time glancing fiendishly at
her intended victim. How long this terror lasted, the woman
(20:07):
could not tell, But at last she, in the very
desperation of fear, arose as though not alarmed, and made
a private excuse for going out. She was permitted to
do so, and moving around to the shelter of the stable,
barefooted and scarce half clad, she darted off on the
wings of fear and ran for two miles to the
house of one who protected her and gave her shelter
(20:29):
As she was running away, she turned frequently to see
if she was being pursued, but no one followed her,
though she saw the light from the open doorway several times,
as though the devils inside were awaiting her return.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
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(21:04):
past is present.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Although for the past three years this section has been
infested with horse thieves and murderers, and this known to
everyone around the country. It is probable the same state
of affairs might have continued for an indefinite period had
not the murder of doctor York, a man of family,
friends and reputation, led to the exposure. Men have been
(21:32):
missed and bodies found of murdered men for three years,
past and vigilance committees have hunted and driven some men
from the country, but it would now seem as though
the leaders of these regulators were themselves the villains, and
honest men had been falsely and foully suspected and driven
from their homes. Known villains have for that time been
sent to the penitentiary, only to be pardoned out by
(21:54):
the governors. And even the band of seventy five armed
and honest men who scoured the country in search of
doctor York when it was learned that he was missing,
seemed to have very little judgment or discretion. On the
twenty eighth of March last Colonel Yorke and mister Johnson
visited the Bender House, to which place they had tracked
doctor York, and endeavored to coax some information from them,
(22:15):
but they would tell nothing. On the third of April,
this armed band visited the house with the sole object
of finding the murders of doctor York, and yet they
did not notice the bullet holes in the house and
allowed themselves to be fooled by an assumed stupidity which
was the disguise of most Hellish cunning. The old hag
sat Mum and gloomy, pretending she could not understand or
(22:37):
speak English. Old Benders said nothing. Kate, she of the
evil Eye, denied all knowledge of the lost and the
younger male villain fooled them with a well made up story.
He said that at about the time they say doctor
Yorke was missed, he bender had been shot at one
evening in a lonesome place near Drum Creek, and it
(22:57):
must have been by those who killed the doctor. He
described the place minutely and then took them to it
and was found as he said, And they half believed
his story and returned with him. Colonel Yorke repeated the
story given above of the supper of pistols and knives
offered to the lone woman. When the old hag soon
found her sense of the English language improved, she understood
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all that had been said and flew into a violent passion.
She denied the story of the supper and said that
there was a bad and wicked woman whom she would
kill if she ever came near them again. That the
woman was a witch and had bewitched Kate's coffee, and
then she ordered the whole band away. While going and
coming from the creek, John told Colonel Yorke that his
(23:39):
sister Kate could do anything, and that she could confront
the devil, and that the devil did her bidding. When
they returned to the house, Colonel Yorke tried to induce
this wonderful mistress of the devil to reveal where the
body of his brother was. She positively refused her satanic
aid at this time, giving as her reason therefore, that
she could not do so during the daytime, and while
(24:01):
there were so many men and so much noise about.
The pretended sorceress and real fiend then told Colonel York
privately that if he would come the next night, Friday,
when best she worked her spells, and bring only one
man with him, she would take him to the grave
of his murdered brother. Had the Colonel been so foolish
as to believe the mysterious power of the creature, there
(24:24):
is no doubt she would have proved her promise good.
The whole band then left the house. So strong was
their conviction, however, of the guilt of the Benders, that
they would have hung them up then, had it not
been for the persuasion of Colonel Yorke and a few others,
who were determined that none but the known guilty should suffer.
Of course, this alarmed the Benders, and they fled. It
(24:45):
seemed strange that no watch was put upon the suspected Benders,
and still more strange that they should have gone three
weeks before any knew of it. When they went to Thayer,
they left their team and wagon and dog on the
public street of the town. On the street, the team
and the wagon rem made for two days without acclaimant
when they were taken charge of by a livery firm.
There no notice other than an item in the local
(25:07):
journal was given of the finding of the team, and
no description of the horses published, although they were peculiarly
and similarly marked. Had such description been given, it must
have led to the speedy pursuit of the fleeing criminals.
It is not suspected that there was any guilt in
this neglect, but only carelessness. On last Sunday there were
(25:30):
about one thousand men, women and children at the Bender grounds,
gazing with mingled motions of horror and curiosity. The graves
even yet sent forth a sickening stint, and women held
their noses as they peered down into the narrow, tenantless holes.
Two special trains were run, one from Independence and one
from Coffeeville to a point on the railway line about
(25:52):
two miles from the house, and teams were busy running
to and from the cars to the grounds, while the
greater portion of the crowd was compelled to These trains
brought about six hundred persons. There were about six or
seven hundred persons there from all parts of the surrounding country,
in wagons, carriages, buggies and horseback. The curiosity of many
(26:14):
seemed to master the repulsion, and hundreds brought away some
memento of the dreadful place. The bloodstained bedstead was smashed
to pieces and divided in the crowd. All the shrubbery
and the young trees were broken up and carried away,
and pieces of the house borne off by the curious.
Such another raid would not leave much of the shanty.
(26:34):
It was supposed that the grounds would be plowed and
scraped again this day to search for other bodies, but
the intention was abandoned, and it is not probable any
further search would be made until it is done regularly
by the county authorities. August eighteen eighty seven years after
(26:56):
the discovery of the bodies, the arrest poor old Sawny
MacGregor and his miserable wife adds another to the list
of waterholes made by the people of Labette County. The
hanging of Buckman his narrow escape from a disgraceful death.
The arrest of the Keifer family in eighteen seventy four
in the Indian Territory and the Salt Lake in Iowa
(27:18):
arrests but deepened the gloomy picture of crime, carelessness, and
official imbecility. The Keifer family were taken to Fort Smith
after their arrest, but were released by the judge of
the United States Court upon a rid of habeas corpus.
Mister Dentst, a near neighbor of the Benders, went down
with the Sheriff of Labet and overtook the Keefers. It
(27:41):
was discovered immediately that they were not the Benders. If
the family had been so unfortunate as to have been
taken to Labet, there is no doubt that the miserable
farce would have ended with a lynching tragedy. If the
mcgregors had been taken back to Oswego two or three
years ago, the probabilities are that they would have met
death at the hands of an infuriated mob. Fortunately, seven
(28:04):
years lapse of time had dulled the edge of revenge
and cynical laughter or mere curiosity possessed the people Instead,
the release of the prisoners closes a really amusing exhibition
which might be called a serio comedy, degenerating in the
last act into a roaring farce with disgust from the
(28:25):
boxes and loud applause from the pit. Omaha, Nebraska, August third,
eighteen eighty This morning, quite a sensation was created here
by the arrest of a party supposed to be John
Bender Junior. They had a gray horse, a bay mule,
(28:47):
and a covered wagon. The man and wife and three
children were sunburned and dark as gypsies. Upon investigation, however,
they gave a good account of themselves. They said they
came from Johnson County, Kansas, last year, crossed the Missouri
River at Omaha, and went to Minnesota, and recently returned
(29:09):
via Sioux City in Nebraska City, and are now en
route to Illinois. They and their outfit in many respects
answered the description of Young Benders, party and outfit. They
were discharged and soon departed. W. H. Riley of this
city is positive that he saw young benderin party between
(29:30):
Crescent and Council Bluffs, Iowa, last evening. As he was
on his way home to this city. He informed Sheriff guy,
and today Riley left for Crescent again to make a search.
It is generally thought that the young Benders are now
in western Iowa, within a radius of forty or fifty
miles of Council Bluffs. A letter received here today would
(29:51):
seem to lead to the conclusion that old Bender and
wife had no one with them, and that their name
is MacGregor after all, and possibly Old ben Da had
not been captured, but that the prisoner's story that he
happened to be sick at Benders while the murdering was
going on may be true. The letter is as follows. Clarksville, Nebraska,
(30:11):
August third. The old couple arrested at Fremont supposed to
be the Bender, Butcher's passed here July twelfth on foot
going east. I did not see any others with them.
The same couple passed up less through here on foot
in May eighteen seventy nine. They stopped at my house overnight.
They said that they were going up to northeast Nebraska
to take up a land claim, and that their name
(30:33):
was MacGregor, yours J. S. Dunham. It will be borne
in mind that the old man has all along maintained
that his name is McGregor. Nevertheless, he has contradicted himself
in many ways, and today belief is stronger than ever
that he is the original old Bender. He and the
old woman will be given a most rigid examination. They
(30:55):
are to have their pictures taken. Jego, Kansas, August ninth,
eighteen eighty. The attempt on the part of two weather
beaten old tramps to palm themselves off on a credulous
public as the only an original Bender Butcher's has occasioned
(31:16):
a good deal of quiet amusement in these parts, where
the truth is very generally known or shrewdly surmised. Every
time the story of the Bender murder is revived, and
it has been revived a dozen times, almost within the
last six or seven years, I am tempted to come
forward and tell what I know. Were it not for
(31:38):
the enjoyment that comes of watching birth, growth, and sudden
subsidence of each successive sensation, I should long ago have
made a statement of the facts for the vindication of history.
If for no other reason, this last sensation has proved
a quirker in its way, and under the circumstances the
public cannot be blamed being taken in by the impostor.
(32:03):
The knowledge of the Kansas tragedies played by the McGregor
tramps was such as to deceive many who ought to
know better than to listen for a moment to their talk.
They displayed an apparently intimate acquaintance with many of the
horrible details of the sickening butcheries, and glibly accused each
other of complicity in the atrocious crimes. Yet to unacquainted
(32:24):
with the habits and traits of character of the American gypsies,
there is nothing remarkable in this professional tramps have nothing
else to do but remember the tragedies that come under
their notice. An exceptionally fiendish atrocity marks an epic in
their worthless lives, and you will frequently if you chance
to be thrown in contact with these nomads, as I've
been come across one of them, who is a walking
(32:46):
encyclopedia of criminal information. Their minds become a repository of
knavish knowledge, and the extent and scope of their historical
information is really amazing. Their minds seem to have a
peculiar bent in that direction, and mixing as they do
with the lower and more brutal classes their very beings
(33:07):
become saturated with crime. They live in an atmosphere of wickedness,
and they think of little else. Such a crime as
the Bender murder must of necessity have created a profound
sensation among them at the time, and there are probably
hundreds of them today who could personate these people as well,
if not better than the macgregors. They may have been
(33:29):
accidentally drawn into it, and then, with the instinctive cunning
humor sometimes found in tramps, concluded to vary the monotony
of existence a little by carrying it out to the limit,
feeding their imaginations on the fund of facts in their
possession for something to confess. They did not dip in
very deep at first, but as the magnitude of the
(33:50):
joke grew on them, they cut loose and poured forth
a deluge of horrors for the delectation of their auditors.
They kept the stock of confessions on tap, and the
supply was never exhausted. In discussing the tramp question, I
find I have allowed myself to wander from the subject
upon which I started to write you, and with your permission,
(34:12):
I will return to my mutton. I think it is
time the truth should be known and widely circulated about
the Bender business, and a stop put to further foolishness.
I want everybody in the world to know that it
is beyond the power of an officer of the law
to arrest any of the Benders. They are outside the
(34:32):
jurisdiction of the courts of human justice, and I cannot
see the harm of telling it. If there is any
dependence to be placed on the teachings of the Holy Book.
They are sizzling and hissing somewhere beyond the mystic curtain
of life. There can be no doubt that the Benders
are dead. They are awfully dead, and their bones are
(35:00):
whitened by the process of nature. Ere this I speak
thus decisively, because I know whereof I speak. It is
not customary for one to boast of lawlessness, and it
is not in that spirit that I enter upon the
recital of the last chapter of the Bloody Career of
the Brutish Benders. I am prudent enough too to wish
(35:21):
to hedge myself against possible annoyance. And had I not
your solemn assurance that you will not divulge my name,
it is not unlikely that I should leave the writing
of this scrap of history to other hands. I will
not consume your valuable space by attempting to defend myself
(35:43):
from my associates for the part we took in purifying
the atmosphere of southern Kansas by avenging the wholesale murders
that were committed by the Benders. To suffice it to say,
our consciences are not troubled in the least by recollections
of the exciting accurrences which followed the discovery of the
slaughter of ten human beings in that lonely tavern. And
(36:05):
if we had to do it over again, I doubt
if the program would be varied in iota. It is
not necessary to go into a detailed account of the murders.
In point of fact, very little is actually known on
that point. No one in the land of the living
will have the hardihood to say that he saw the
deeds done. And the Benders themselves never made a confession
(36:26):
that I know of. The McGregor liars were a little
off in their description of the murders. They always had
Kate or Maggie her cousin, or John cutting the heads
of the victims to pieces with hatchets, whereas they were
invariably brained with a hammer and their throats cut. The
introduction of the girl Maggie into the plot is something
(36:47):
new too, But with these little matters I have nothing
to do with this time. There may have been a Maggie,
and there may have been others implicated, but on this
point there is a death of positive knowledge. The Benders,
John and his wife and their two children. Kate and
John kept a wayside tavern about a mile and a
half southeast of Moorhead Station, on the road leading from
(37:08):
Independence to the Osage Mission. They were there when I
moved into the county, two years before the discovery of
the butcheries, and were well known then. Their plays had
a hard name, and it was understood to be the
headquarters of disreputable characters. Still, as nothing was ever laid
at their doors, the Benders were not molested. Kate and
(37:29):
John lived together as man and wife, but the woman
would smile upon the transient horse thief for cowboy when
a dollar was to be made that way. She was
a red faced, low browed, square shouldered amazon, strong enough
to throw a bull by the tail, and everybody stood
in awe of her. She made a pretense of practicing
the healing art, and was known far and wide as
(37:51):
a spiritualistic doctor. Her cures were permanent and her remedy
was a hammer decent. People avoided the Bender tap as
the country hereabouts harbored a good many desperados. About this time,
no one cared to raise a row, and the protest
went no further than avoidance. When serge was instituted for
(38:11):
the body of doctor Yorke, suspicion was directed against the Benders, and,
contrary to the general belief, a closed watch was kept
on them for a while. They must have been aware
of the surveillance for the first opportunity they decamped. The
report that they took the train at Thayre, a station
a few miles north of Cherryvale, and went to Humboldt,
(38:34):
from which place they took passage for Texas is a mistake.
They simply bundled their goods into two wagons and started
for the Indian territory. They did not proceed at once
to their destination, if indeed they had any destination marked out,
but crossed over into Montgomery County and squatted near the
Verdigorous River to await developments. The distance from their farm
(38:56):
was something like twenty miles. John Junior or John Senior
made daily trips back to the vicinity of Cherryvale and
took observations. It was their intention to return if the
excitement should blow over, but if it continued warm, they
would go on as originally planned. They knew of the
discovery of their crime within an hour after the bodies
were dug out of the shallow graves, and they lost
(39:18):
no time in striking their tents. They struck out for
the west bank of the river and started southward. Post taste,
their flight soon became a panic, and to add to
their discomfiture, one of their wagons broke down. Packing what
they could of the load on their horses, They piled
up on what was left, set fire to it, and
(39:39):
hurried on. In the meantime, a vigilance committee had been formed.
This move was taken with the greatest secrecy, and none
but trusty men were admitted to the organization. The utmost
circumspection was used for the reason that in a new
community like this, the doubtful assistance of suspicious characters was
a thing to be dreaded. The vigilantes did not number
(40:02):
more than one hundred men all told, but they meant business.
As the sequel proved, it was my good or bad
fortune to be one of the elect Scouts were sent
out in all directions, and within forty eight hours of
the departure of the Benders from their camp in the
next county, the fact was duly reported to us. About
(40:23):
forty of us organized into a pursuing party and started
after the butchers. Once on their trail, we had no
difficulty in following it. Their murderous quartet had taken to
the open country west of the river, but were keeping
within convenient distance of the black timber that grows in
the valley watered by this stream. They were expecting pursuit
(40:44):
and hoped to escape by losing themselves in this timber
if it came to the worst. As we proceeded, the
trail freshened, and ere long we came across the half
consumed ruins of the wagon left by the Benders in
their flight. From the direction they were it became evident
to the mind of those acquainted with the country that
they were pointing for that paradise of cutthroats located near
(41:07):
the mouth of the Red Fork of the Arkansas the
country hereabouts is a bleak and desolate region infested by horss, thieves,
half breed Creeks, Pawnees, and Cherokees. Once there, they knew
that they would be safe from pursuit. Even the United
States troops have never been able to penetrate that terra incognita.
(41:27):
It is a safe retreat for the border ruffians, and
is known to be such all through this section of
the country. This haven for the wicked is distant about
one hundred and forty miles from the point where the
Verdigrius River enters into Indian territory. The murderers had about
forty miles to travel before reaching the boundary of the territory,
(41:47):
and they were probably twenty miles beyond the line when
our scouts caught sight of them. Burdened as they were
with much cumbersome baggage, they had not been able to
make very great speed, but they had used every possible
effort to put space behind them. It was about three
o'clock on a hot, sultry May afternoon when we came
(42:08):
inside of the party. They saw us as soon as
we came from cover, and abandoning everything they broke for
the forest, they plunged into the woods and scattered. We
were close upon their heels, however, and they did not
succeed in eluding us long. The old man and his
wife and Kate were under arrest in less than an hour.
(42:28):
John Junior was more fortunate than the other members of
the tribe, for he contrived to evade us for an
hour longer, but he was at length run to cover
and forced to surrender. Every one of them showed fight,
but with the exception of Kate, they all weakened. When
it came to the scratch. The charming boarder Beauty emptied
every chamber of her revolver into our faces, but her
(42:51):
aim was bad, and she did no serious damage beyond
maiming one of our horses and clipping a lock of
hair from my temple. The bullet raised a ridge along
the skin, the work of which shows to this day.
She finally succumbed to superior strength, but to the last
maintained the same daredevil, reckless demeanor. Having captured the assassins,
(43:16):
the question now arose, what are we to do with them?
Some were for taking them back and letting the law
take its course. The advocates of this line of policy
were largely in the minority. There were those among us
whose relatives had fallen victim to the deadly hammers and
knives of the wretches, and they would not listen to
(43:37):
the suggestions of the conservative element. They threatened to do
some killing then and there if their demands for instant
vengeance were not regarded. No one would have offered a
very strenuous opposition if they had carried out their threats,
but it was thought best to do the job up
after the most approved form obtaining in the courts, presided
over by Judge Lynch, were accordingly arraigned and asked what
(44:02):
they had to say in their defense. The old woman
was sullen and ugly, but the two men showed signs
of faltering. Had they been left to themselves, they would
have made full confessions beyond a doubt. The amiable Kate
perceived this, and, thinking it would please the vigilantes too
much to hear their confessions, she fell to cursing her
(44:23):
brother and father for their cowardice. Fouler language was never
uttered than came from the lips of this fiend. No
term was too vile to apply to her relatives. They
took it sullenly at first, but soon something of her
reckless spirit infused them, and they too joined in the tirade.
The chorus of blasphemy that went up from that hardened
(44:44):
lot caused us shudder to run through our party. With
death staring them in the face, they united in cursing
us and lamenting their inability to do us harm. Such
malignancy I never saw equaled. Even the old woman chipped
in occasionally, and her appearance indicated that she wholly approved
of the family demonstration. When charged with the murderers laid
(45:08):
at their doors, the answer was a curse, followed by
more curses, and then a volley a fusillade of curses
and ribald abuse. Our court went through with the form prescribed,
and then pronounced the sentence of death. The announcement was
received with jeers from the hardened criminals, who had determined
to brave it out to the last. It was decided
(45:31):
that the murderers should be shot, as it would take
too much time to hang them. The sun was already
nearly down and the shadows of approaching night were deepening
there on the borders of the forest. The cruel killers
were tied to saplings, and told to prepare for death.
One of our number, who had not quite forgotten his
(45:52):
early education, undertook to offer a prayer. But the lovely
Kate spit in his face while he was addressing the
throne of grace, and he quit right in the middle
of a sentence and drew off in disgust. The four
died with curses on their lips, hardened and unrepentant to
the last. There in that lonely, dismal spot, away beyond
(46:17):
the confines of civilization, they met a righteous retribution, and
their souls, black with crime, were sent to meet the
great Judge. Their executioners treated them better than they treated
their innocent victims. They were killed quickly and painlessly, not
butchered brutally. To be sure. Not much time was wasted
(46:41):
in burial, and it was growing late, and the vigilantes
had a long ride before them. A hole made by
the displacement of the roots of a fallen cottonwood was
made a little bit larger and deeper, and the bodies
thrown in and hastily covered with loose earth rocks and brushwood.
This was all there was to the funeral. On reaching
(47:03):
the level again, the effects of the Benders were stacked
and burned as a sort of an offering to Heaven.
We then proceeded northward, separating before reaching the settlements, each
seeking his home quietly. There was no blow made about
our achievement, each man keeping his own counsel. The secret
(47:24):
was well kept, and it was weeks before outsiders stopped
prowling around in search of the Benders. Those immediately concerned
very speedily lost interest in the chase, however, and though
nothing was said on the subject, it came to be
tacitly understood throughout Labetta Montgomery Counties. It would be a
waste of time to prosecute inquiry further. This is the
(47:48):
true history of the fate of the Benders. And when
in the future you hear of the apprehension of any
of the tribe, you can put it down as a
canard signed Vigilante. This has been the Bloody Benders, a
(48:20):
serial killer. Clips edition of yesterday's news. The tale of
the Vigilante has the ring of truth to me. But
no one knows what really happened to the Bloody Benders.
And there were arrests made as late as eighteen eighty nine,
but no one ever stood trial for the innkeeping families
horrible crimes. On my website www dot truecrimehistorian dot com,
(48:44):
you can find source information on this episode, along with
links to websites with more information about the Bender family.
In the upper right hand corner, you'll also find a
button leading you to my social media pages. Click on that.
Leave me alike, give me a share or a retweet,
whatever you're in the mood for. Our relationship means a
(49:05):
lot to me, and your support allows me to continue
to find fresh stories every week about America's famous and
forgotten scandals, scoundrels, and scourges. If you look around on
the website, you'll also find a few ways to spend
some money too, buying some books or whatever, and that
also helps. Music by Chuck Wiggins. This is True Crime
(49:30):
Historian Richard O. Jones signing off for now. H
Lawrence, Kansas, May eighth, eighteen seventy three, the body of
doctor William Henry Yorke was found about ten o'clock in
a plowed field of about an acre in extent and
within two hundred yards of the cabin of the Bender family.
The murdered man had been buried face downward in a
(00:26):
hole about four feet deep and eighteen inches wide. The
back of the skull was found to have been broken
and both temples crushed in as if by blows with
a shoehammer. One eye had been driven from its socket,
and the victim's throat was cut. A shoehammer found in
the house fitted the indentations in the back of the head.
An attempt had been made to conceal the grave by
(00:49):
plowing over it, but the earth had been thrown in
so loosely that an iron endgate rod was easily thrust
into the excavation. The remains were not so far decomposed
as to prevent their easy recognition by State Senator Edward Yorke,
the dead man's brother. The stench arising from the deserted
cabin led to the belief that other dead bodies were
(01:11):
concealed beneath it, and it was removed from its foundations.
Three bodies were found beneath the house and four graves
in different parts of the little field. Two of the
victims were men and one a little girl. The bodies
of the men, like that of doctor Yorke, were stripped
to their shirts, showing that their clothing was partly an
object in murdering them. A little girl had on a
(01:34):
dress an apron. All the victims had evidently been killed
by a blow in the back of the head. All
had their throats cut, except for the little girl. The
scenes of these awful disclosures is six miles northeast of Cherryvale,
on a railroad claim occupied about two years ago by
a family named Bender, consisting of John Bender and son
(01:55):
and his wife and her daughter, both understood to be
children by former messages. The young woman, Kate Bender, claimed
to be a medium and to possess wonderful powers, and
was the leading spirit of the family. The sudden flight
of the family about three weeks ago, leaving their stock
behind them and leaving their team at their probably excited suspicion.
(02:18):
They bought tickets at Thayer for Humboldt. They are being
vigorously hunted for in every direction we have given what
we know to be correct, and have avoided everything not
fully corroborated. We were on the ground and viewed the
premises and remains with our own eyes, and converse with
those who are personally cognizant of what was related. The
(02:41):
reader can supply his own ejaculations of horror. True crime
historian presents serial killer clips original newspaper accounts of America's
most prolific murderers. This time, we're looking at the legend
(03:06):
of a Kansas family that killed at least eleven visitors
to their roadhouse in the early eighteen seventies. They aroused
suspicion by choosing as a victim a well known physician,
whose family soon pulled out all stops in a search
until they uncovered his body along with ten other missing
travelers on the Bender property. The Bender family was nowhere
(03:29):
to be found. Sightings and even arrests were regular for
many years, but the second act of this episode purports
to tell the true story of what happened to the
mass murdering hostelers from a man who was there. I'm
true crime historian Richard O. Jones, and I give you
the bloody Benders. On Monday last a brother of the
(04:00):
lately murdered doctor Yorke received intelligence that a family named
Bender had left their claim near Big Hill Creek in
Lebette County, where they were running a little store for
the purpose of supplying travelers with such refreshments as they
might need. While passing, their departure was noticed by someone
who had passed, noticing that a calf which had been
tied up had starved to death. A closer inspection showed
(04:22):
that all were gone, with what movables could be carried
in a wagon. The neighbors concluded to look further into
the matter, and, having learned that a team had been
abandoned at Thayer some three weeks before, some of them
immediately proceeded to that point and identified the team as
having belonged to the Benders. They then concluded to fully
search the premises, their suspicions being immediately aroused toward that
(04:44):
family as being the cause of so many being missed
in the neighborhood. Mister Edward Yorke, being notified, immediately proceeded
to the ground and had not been there more than
half an hour when, in passing over a dead furrow
in a little garden patch which had been plowed over.
His attention was attracted to a piece of sub soil
on the surface. Looking more closely, he discovered a straight
(05:05):
mark across the furrow where the ground was slightly sunken.
By looking closely, he was able to trace the outlines
of a grave. The end rod of a wagon was
used to probe the ground inside the lines discovered. It
was found that inside the lines it was not difficult
to thrust the rod in its full length, while outside
these lines it would not penetrate deeper than the plowed
(05:25):
ground without pressure. Digging was immediately commenced and the body
of doctor William Henry Yorke was discovered. On being uncovered,
it was found that he had been killed by blows
on the head with a blunt instrument, one on the
back of the head at the base of the brain
being sufficient to produce instant death. There were two others
on either side of the head, and his throat was
(05:45):
cut from ear to ear and so deeply that the
head was nearly severed from the body. Two hammers and
a hatchet were found on the premises, one of which
fitted the wound on the back of the head. The
premises were next visited and examined. The building as a
frame sixteen by twenty unplastered with a cloth partition separating
it into two halves. The generally accepted theory of the
(06:08):
manner of the killing is that travelers were seated in
such a manner that their heads would lean against and
indent the cloth partition which crossed the room. Someone stationed
behind the curtain would then strike them with a hammer,
and someone in the front room was ready to finish
the job. After that they were taken to the trap door,
where they were thrown in, their throats cut, and they
(06:29):
were left until night, when they were carried out and buried.
In the patch of ground above alluded to the body
of doctor Yorke was immediately recognized by Edward Yorke the
general features and by a bandage on one knee where
he had a running sore, and a bandage on one
finger of his left hand which had been mashed just
before he started on his journey. The location of the
(06:51):
place is in the northwest corner of Lebett County, on
the road to o Sage Mission and Fort Scott, about
ten miles from there and five and a half half
miles from Cherryvale. The building is out of view from
every other house and seems to have been chosen expressly
for the murderous purposes for which it has been used.
It is in a hollow or swale in the prairie,
(07:13):
far from Timber and where they could see a mile
in any direction and be in no danger of interruption
for at least half an hour. There was a stone
stable on the premises where horses could be securely hidden
until such time as they could be run off and
disposed of. After the finding of York, it was determined
to make a further search. The next day. This was done,
(07:35):
and the horrible disclosure was made that there were at
least seven other graves on the same piece of ground.
Willing hands were soon engaged at resurrecting them, and during
Wednesday the bodies of seven more victims were brought to light,
all killed in the same way disposed of in the
same manner, with the exception of the little daughter of
George W. Longcour who showed no marks of violence, but
(07:59):
is supposed to have been smothered or buried alive. George W.
Longcoor and daughter have been missing since the latter part
of December. They had started to go to Iowa from
the neighborhood of Onion Creek. Mister Longcour was a neighbor
of Doctor York and had purchased a wagon from him.
He and his daughter were buried in the same grave,
(08:21):
the daughter, eighteen months old, being placed in between its
father's feet. The father was stripped of all clothing except
his undergarments, as were all the victims, but the child
was buried with all its clothing, even to a pair
of mittens. Mister O. D. Brown was from Cedar Vale
in Howard County and had traded horses in the neighborhood
(08:42):
with a man named Johnson. He was recognized by a
silver ring which he wore and which he had shown
to Johnson. The ring, he said he had found, and
it contained some initials we could not learn. He is
supposed to have had fifty three dollars with him. W. F.
Mccrotty resided near Cedar Vale in Howard County and was
contesting a claim before the Land Office had independence. He
(09:06):
was on his way to Neosha County, where he expected
to get money to carry out his contest. He is
not supposed to have had any money with him. Another
report is that he sold his claim horses and wagon,
and together with four hundred dollars, sent him to make
his payments on his claim was possessed of about nineteen
hundred dollars. We are not inclined to credit this latter report.
(09:30):
Henry F. McKenzie of Hamilton County, Indiana has been missing
since about the fifth of December last. He was on
his road to Independence, where he was expected to locate.
He had little or no money. He had a sister
in Independence, Missus J. Thompson, by whom his body was recognized.
He was about thirty years of age. Mister Boyle was
(09:53):
supposed to be another of the victims, but was not
positively identified, although his wife, who was on the ground,
tolerably certain. He wore a homemade linen shirt, rather uncommon
in this country, and his wife said it was the
kindest shirt her husband wore. He has been missing since
December last and had started for o sage mission. There
(10:13):
was one body still unrecognized, and it is so disfigured
as to be hard to describe. He was of medium
height and appeared to be bald. On both temples about
a mile from Benders there's another grocery kept by a
man named Brockmann, against whom suspicion is attached of complicity
in the murders or of a knowledge of their having
been committed. He is said to have been a partner
(10:35):
of Benders from eighteen sixty nine to eighteen seventy one.
The people assembled were confident that he could make some
disclosures if he would, and it seemed impossible that these
crimes could be committed in such close proximity to him
without his knowledge, as his family were in the habit
of going to Benders for milk, he having a fresh cow.
It has not seem possible that one German family on
(10:57):
good terms with another should not know of its absence
for three weeks, when their claims are almost adjoining in
their houses less than a mile apart. The neighbors, believing thus,
and being determined to ferret the thing to the bottom,
took Brockmann from his house, conveyed him some eight miles
in the woods on Wednesday night, and there twice hung
(11:18):
him to a limb until life was almost extinct, in
order to force him from any knowledge of the matter
he might possess. In this they were unsuccessful. Great excitement
prevails throughout Labet and adjoining counties over this series of
diabolical murders, and if anyone is captured known to be
connected with these murders, the courts will hardly be troubled
(11:40):
with them. The Bender family must all be guilty, as
it is not possible that any could be ignorant of
what was going on. The house is located in the
middle of the prairie. No farming was carried on to
cause anyone to be away from the house. The graves
were all deep and dug in a systematic manner to
a depth of about five feet. The surface of the
(12:01):
soil was kept separate from the subsoil and preserved to
cover the top. After the burials, the ground was carefully
plowed and harrowed over. The ninth murder was that of
a man named Jones, whose body was found in Drum
Creek sometime since. He was killed in the same manner
as the others, and had been hauled to the creek
and Bender's wagon, which was easy to track as one
(12:24):
wheel was dished and wobbled. He was thrust through a
hole in the ice, the ground being frozen so as
to prevent grave digging. The murders reported above are all
of a recent date, and the family having resided in
the neighborhood for four years. It is probable that half
has not been told. A singular circumstance connected with the
(12:45):
burials is that all the bodies were buried with the
left arm crossed on the breast and the right arm
lying by their side. This is supposed to be the
sign of an organized band, and that when one member
is arrested, the remainder find the money to defend the accused.
The benders consist of four persons, the old man, who
(13:05):
is a stout, burly fellow with shaggy eyebrows, his wife
not particularly different from the average German woman of low degree,
the son, who is a stout youth of some twenty
two years of age, and a daughter, Katie. The she
devil of this gang of fiends, was aged twenty one
or twenty two years. Her complexion is yellow. She has
(13:26):
very high cheek bones of very sharp chin, and the
contour of her countenance is said to resemble that of
a wolf. The girls used to say she had a
wolfish face. Her hair is a light brown with a
tinge of red. She is somewhat round or stooped shoulders
and rather hollow breasted. She is rather slenderly built and
has a long, slim waist. Her ears have been pierced
(13:48):
for ear rings, but she wore none. Her eyes are
dark gray. Her nose is somewhat flat with large nostrils.
She is quick and rapid in her speech. Who pretended
to be a clairvoyant, fortune teller and a spiritualist, and
who seem to possess complete control over the balance of
the family. May ninth, eighteen seventy three, three more bodies
(14:15):
have been discovered near the Bender cabin, making eleven in all.
May seventeenth, eighteen seventy three, nine days after the discovery
of the bodies. Now that the curtain of mystery, which
has so long enshrouded the damnable deeds of the Bender family,
(14:36):
has been drawn aside, revealing to the public gaze the
existence in our very myths of a system of cold
blooded murdering, almost unparalleled in the annals of crime. Many
little incidents are brought back to the memory of different
ones which are now known to have a direct connection
with the doings of that murderous crew, and it seems
almost wonderful that these occurrences, mysterious in their nature, have
(15:00):
not long ago directed suspicion towards them, especially under the
excitement existing on account of so many mysterious disappearances. Some
time ago, a poor sick woman who had lived in
that neighborhood, having heard of Miss Kate Bender's professions of
medical skill, sought her services in that line. The doctors
(15:22):
prescribed for her and said she required no payment for
her services unless they proved beneficial. If we understood our
informant rightly, the sick woman went away, leaving her side
saddle as proof of her intention to remunerate the doctress
in a few days. However, finding that she had not
improved in health, she concluded to go and get her
(15:43):
side saddle, so one evening she went there for that purpose.
On arriving the house, she went in and talked a while.
After she had been there a short time, the whole
family got together in the house, closed the doors, and
all seated themselves at the table, invoked the presence of
the spirits, and proceeded to go through a series of incantations,
something after the fashion of those supposed to have been
(16:06):
indulged in by the breeders of witchcraft in its palmy days.
Each had a large butcher knife, which they would draw
across their throats and make other significant motions with, and
with a uniformity that indicated that they had been thoroughly
drilled in this spiritualistic manual of arms. The poor woman
was nearly dumb with terror, but during a lull in
(16:26):
the performance, she regained her presence of mind, and, without
any exhibition of fear, leisurely stepped out the door, leaving
her bonnet to make them think she would return. As
soon as she got outside. She moved away as fast
as possible, but had not gone far when she heard
footsteps pursuing her. She concealed herself in the grass until
her pursuer had passed her. When she crawled on her
(16:48):
hands and knees for long ways and finally got safely away.
She told the story to some of the neighbors, but
for some reason no one seemed to attach any importance
to the incident, it probably being thought that she had
become frightened at the spiritual demonstrations. Some time after this,
a lot of men were scouring that vicinity for some
clue to the disappearance of York. They stopped at a
(17:09):
man's house and made inquiries of him as what place
if any occurrences of a questionable character were likely to
take place. The incident above occurred to him all at once,
and he told them that the Benders was the only
one he knew of that could possibly be suspicioned. The
men proceeded to Benders, took young Bender into custody and
interviewed him in regard to the matter. He threw them
(17:31):
completely off the scent in a very clever manner. He
thought he could give them a clue. He took them
to a place some three miles away and showed them
where he had been shot at on last Christmas. While
he was passing there. They let him go, and of
course that clue was not worth anything to them, but
it was worth a good deal to the Benders. Mister
(17:58):
Charles Hallett, who was in our city some five or
six weeks ago, related his experience to one of our citizens.
He was on his way from Independence to this place
and stopped at a house, which, from his descriptions, must
have been the Bender place. While seated, he heard a
noise behind him, and on looking around, he saw a
man stealthily approaching him with a hammer in his hand.
(18:19):
Hallett drew his revolver and wheeled on him, and, when
he pretended to be driving a nail on the floor,
explained with a virtuously indignant air his action. Hallett told
him not to be driving any nails where he was.
A man who lived but a short distance from Bender
stopped there one day. The old man stepped up to him,
(18:40):
having a hammer in his hand, and asked him where
he lived. No doubt if the man had been a traveler,
that would have been the end of him. But it
is probable that they dared not risk murdering one of
their neighbors. Many incidents of this kind will now be
brought to the minds of different parties, who, when they
think of them, will shudder at the thought of how
near they were to meeting a terrible death in that
(19:00):
human slaughterhouse. May twenty second, eighteen seventy three, one evening,
about three months ago, a poor woman, footsore and weary,
traveling to Independence without money, stopped at the Bender Den
and asked for some supper and for privilege of resting
(19:22):
a while. She was invited in, and, being nearly exhausted,
she took her shoes and scanty wrappings off and lay
down on the bed in the back room. She soon
fell into a troubled doze, from which she was awakened
by the touch of the old hag of the den, who,
pointing to an array of pistols and double edged knives
of various sizes lying on the table, said, in the
(19:44):
spirit of hellish malignity, there your supper is ready. The
woman was motionless and breathless with terror, and as she
sank back on her bed, the devil dame picked up
the knives one by one and drew her fingers along
the sharpened blades, at the same time glancing fiendishly at
her intended victim. How long this terror lasted, the woman
(20:07):
could not tell, But at last she, in the very
desperation of fear, arose as though not alarmed, and made
a private excuse for going out. She was permitted to
do so, and moving around to the shelter of the stable,
barefooted and scarce half clad, she darted off on the
wings of fear and ran for two miles to the
house of one who protected her and gave her shelter
(20:29):
As she was running away, she turned frequently to see
if she was being pursued, but no one followed her,
though she saw the light from the open doorway several times,
as though the devils inside were awaiting her return.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
To avoid future commercial interruption, join us at the Safehouse
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(21:04):
past is present.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Although for the past three years this section has been
infested with horse thieves and murderers, and this known to
everyone around the country. It is probable the same state
of affairs might have continued for an indefinite period had
not the murder of doctor York, a man of family,
friends and reputation, led to the exposure. Men have been
(21:32):
missed and bodies found of murdered men for three years,
past and vigilance committees have hunted and driven some men
from the country, but it would now seem as though
the leaders of these regulators were themselves the villains, and
honest men had been falsely and foully suspected and driven
from their homes. Known villains have for that time been
sent to the penitentiary, only to be pardoned out by
(21:54):
the governors. And even the band of seventy five armed
and honest men who scoured the country in search of
doctor York when it was learned that he was missing,
seemed to have very little judgment or discretion. On the
twenty eighth of March last Colonel Yorke and mister Johnson
visited the Bender House, to which place they had tracked
doctor York, and endeavored to coax some information from them,
(22:15):
but they would tell nothing. On the third of April,
this armed band visited the house with the sole object
of finding the murders of doctor York, and yet they
did not notice the bullet holes in the house and
allowed themselves to be fooled by an assumed stupidity which
was the disguise of most Hellish cunning. The old hag
sat Mum and gloomy, pretending she could not understand or
(22:37):
speak English. Old Benders said nothing. Kate, she of the
evil Eye, denied all knowledge of the lost and the
younger male villain fooled them with a well made up story.
He said that at about the time they say doctor
Yorke was missed, he bender had been shot at one
evening in a lonesome place near Drum Creek, and it
(22:57):
must have been by those who killed the doctor. He
described the place minutely and then took them to it
and was found as he said, And they half believed
his story and returned with him. Colonel Yorke repeated the
story given above of the supper of pistols and knives
offered to the lone woman. When the old hag soon
found her sense of the English language improved, she understood
(23:18):
all that had been said and flew into a violent passion.
She denied the story of the supper and said that
there was a bad and wicked woman whom she would
kill if she ever came near them again. That the
woman was a witch and had bewitched Kate's coffee, and
then she ordered the whole band away. While going and
coming from the creek, John told Colonel Yorke that his
(23:39):
sister Kate could do anything, and that she could confront
the devil, and that the devil did her bidding. When
they returned to the house, Colonel Yorke tried to induce
this wonderful mistress of the devil to reveal where the
body of his brother was. She positively refused her satanic
aid at this time, giving as her reason therefore, that
she could not do so during the daytime, and while
(24:01):
there were so many men and so much noise about.
The pretended sorceress and real fiend then told Colonel York
privately that if he would come the next night, Friday,
when best she worked her spells, and bring only one
man with him, she would take him to the grave
of his murdered brother. Had the Colonel been so foolish
as to believe the mysterious power of the creature, there
(24:24):
is no doubt she would have proved her promise good.
The whole band then left the house. So strong was
their conviction, however, of the guilt of the Benders, that
they would have hung them up then, had it not
been for the persuasion of Colonel Yorke and a few others,
who were determined that none but the known guilty should suffer.
Of course, this alarmed the Benders, and they fled. It
(24:45):
seemed strange that no watch was put upon the suspected Benders,
and still more strange that they should have gone three
weeks before any knew of it. When they went to Thayer,
they left their team and wagon and dog on the
public street of the town. On the street, the team
and the wagon rem made for two days without acclaimant
when they were taken charge of by a livery firm.
There no notice other than an item in the local
(25:07):
journal was given of the finding of the team, and
no description of the horses published, although they were peculiarly
and similarly marked. Had such description been given, it must
have led to the speedy pursuit of the fleeing criminals.
It is not suspected that there was any guilt in
this neglect, but only carelessness. On last Sunday there were
(25:30):
about one thousand men, women and children at the Bender grounds,
gazing with mingled motions of horror and curiosity. The graves
even yet sent forth a sickening stint, and women held
their noses as they peered down into the narrow, tenantless holes.
Two special trains were run, one from Independence and one
from Coffeeville to a point on the railway line about
(25:52):
two miles from the house, and teams were busy running
to and from the cars to the grounds, while the
greater portion of the crowd was compelled to These trains
brought about six hundred persons. There were about six or
seven hundred persons there from all parts of the surrounding country,
in wagons, carriages, buggies and horseback. The curiosity of many
(26:14):
seemed to master the repulsion, and hundreds brought away some
memento of the dreadful place. The bloodstained bedstead was smashed
to pieces and divided in the crowd. All the shrubbery
and the young trees were broken up and carried away,
and pieces of the house borne off by the curious.
Such another raid would not leave much of the shanty.
(26:34):
It was supposed that the grounds would be plowed and
scraped again this day to search for other bodies, but
the intention was abandoned, and it is not probable any
further search would be made until it is done regularly
by the county authorities. August eighteen eighty seven years after
(26:56):
the discovery of the bodies, the arrest poor old Sawny
MacGregor and his miserable wife adds another to the list
of waterholes made by the people of Labette County. The
hanging of Buckman his narrow escape from a disgraceful death.
The arrest of the Keifer family in eighteen seventy four
in the Indian Territory and the Salt Lake in Iowa
(27:18):
arrests but deepened the gloomy picture of crime, carelessness, and
official imbecility. The Keifer family were taken to Fort Smith
after their arrest, but were released by the judge of
the United States Court upon a rid of habeas corpus.
Mister Dentst, a near neighbor of the Benders, went down
with the Sheriff of Labet and overtook the Keefers. It
(27:41):
was discovered immediately that they were not the Benders. If
the family had been so unfortunate as to have been
taken to Labet, there is no doubt that the miserable
farce would have ended with a lynching tragedy. If the
mcgregors had been taken back to Oswego two or three
years ago, the probabilities are that they would have met
death at the hands of an infuriated mob. Fortunately, seven
(28:04):
years lapse of time had dulled the edge of revenge
and cynical laughter or mere curiosity possessed the people Instead,
the release of the prisoners closes a really amusing exhibition
which might be called a serio comedy, degenerating in the
last act into a roaring farce with disgust from the
(28:25):
boxes and loud applause from the pit. Omaha, Nebraska, August third,
eighteen eighty This morning, quite a sensation was created here
by the arrest of a party supposed to be John
Bender Junior. They had a gray horse, a bay mule,
(28:47):
and a covered wagon. The man and wife and three
children were sunburned and dark as gypsies. Upon investigation, however,
they gave a good account of themselves. They said they
came from Johnson County, Kansas, last year, crossed the Missouri
River at Omaha, and went to Minnesota, and recently returned
(29:09):
via Sioux City in Nebraska City, and are now en
route to Illinois. They and their outfit in many respects
answered the description of Young Benders, party and outfit. They
were discharged and soon departed. W. H. Riley of this
city is positive that he saw young benderin party between
(29:30):
Crescent and Council Bluffs, Iowa, last evening. As he was
on his way home to this city. He informed Sheriff guy,
and today Riley left for Crescent again to make a search.
It is generally thought that the young Benders are now
in western Iowa, within a radius of forty or fifty
miles of Council Bluffs. A letter received here today would
(29:51):
seem to lead to the conclusion that old Bender and
wife had no one with them, and that their name
is MacGregor after all, and possibly Old ben Da had
not been captured, but that the prisoner's story that he
happened to be sick at Benders while the murdering was
going on may be true. The letter is as follows. Clarksville, Nebraska,
(30:11):
August third. The old couple arrested at Fremont supposed to
be the Bender, Butcher's passed here July twelfth on foot
going east. I did not see any others with them.
The same couple passed up less through here on foot
in May eighteen seventy nine. They stopped at my house overnight.
They said that they were going up to northeast Nebraska
to take up a land claim, and that their name
(30:33):
was MacGregor, yours J. S. Dunham. It will be borne
in mind that the old man has all along maintained
that his name is McGregor. Nevertheless, he has contradicted himself
in many ways, and today belief is stronger than ever
that he is the original old Bender. He and the
old woman will be given a most rigid examination. They
(30:55):
are to have their pictures taken. Jego, Kansas, August ninth,
eighteen eighty. The attempt on the part of two weather
beaten old tramps to palm themselves off on a credulous
public as the only an original Bender Butcher's has occasioned
(31:16):
a good deal of quiet amusement in these parts, where
the truth is very generally known or shrewdly surmised. Every
time the story of the Bender murder is revived, and
it has been revived a dozen times, almost within the
last six or seven years, I am tempted to come
forward and tell what I know. Were it not for
(31:38):
the enjoyment that comes of watching birth, growth, and sudden
subsidence of each successive sensation, I should long ago have
made a statement of the facts for the vindication of history.
If for no other reason, this last sensation has proved
a quirker in its way, and under the circumstances the
public cannot be blamed being taken in by the impostor.
(32:03):
The knowledge of the Kansas tragedies played by the McGregor
tramps was such as to deceive many who ought to
know better than to listen for a moment to their talk.
They displayed an apparently intimate acquaintance with many of the
horrible details of the sickening butcheries, and glibly accused each
other of complicity in the atrocious crimes. Yet to unacquainted
(32:24):
with the habits and traits of character of the American gypsies,
there is nothing remarkable in this professional tramps have nothing
else to do but remember the tragedies that come under
their notice. An exceptionally fiendish atrocity marks an epic in
their worthless lives, and you will frequently if you chance
to be thrown in contact with these nomads, as I've
been come across one of them, who is a walking
(32:46):
encyclopedia of criminal information. Their minds become a repository of
knavish knowledge, and the extent and scope of their historical
information is really amazing. Their minds seem to have a
peculiar bent in that direction, and mixing as they do
with the lower and more brutal classes their very beings
(33:07):
become saturated with crime. They live in an atmosphere of wickedness,
and they think of little else. Such a crime as
the Bender murder must of necessity have created a profound
sensation among them at the time, and there are probably
hundreds of them today who could personate these people as well,
if not better than the macgregors. They may have been
(33:29):
accidentally drawn into it, and then, with the instinctive cunning
humor sometimes found in tramps, concluded to vary the monotony
of existence a little by carrying it out to the limit,
feeding their imaginations on the fund of facts in their
possession for something to confess. They did not dip in
very deep at first, but as the magnitude of the
(33:50):
joke grew on them, they cut loose and poured forth
a deluge of horrors for the delectation of their auditors.
They kept the stock of confessions on tap, and the
supply was never exhausted. In discussing the tramp question, I
find I have allowed myself to wander from the subject
upon which I started to write you, and with your permission,
(34:12):
I will return to my mutton. I think it is
time the truth should be known and widely circulated about
the Bender business, and a stop put to further foolishness.
I want everybody in the world to know that it
is beyond the power of an officer of the law
to arrest any of the Benders. They are outside the
(34:32):
jurisdiction of the courts of human justice, and I cannot
see the harm of telling it. If there is any
dependence to be placed on the teachings of the Holy Book.
They are sizzling and hissing somewhere beyond the mystic curtain
of life. There can be no doubt that the Benders
are dead. They are awfully dead, and their bones are
(35:00):
whitened by the process of nature. Ere this I speak
thus decisively, because I know whereof I speak. It is
not customary for one to boast of lawlessness, and it
is not in that spirit that I enter upon the
recital of the last chapter of the Bloody Career of
the Brutish Benders. I am prudent enough too to wish
(35:21):
to hedge myself against possible annoyance. And had I not
your solemn assurance that you will not divulge my name,
it is not unlikely that I should leave the writing
of this scrap of history to other hands. I will
not consume your valuable space by attempting to defend myself
(35:43):
from my associates for the part we took in purifying
the atmosphere of southern Kansas by avenging the wholesale murders
that were committed by the Benders. To suffice it to say,
our consciences are not troubled in the least by recollections
of the exciting accurrences which followed the discovery of the
slaughter of ten human beings in that lonely tavern. And
(36:05):
if we had to do it over again, I doubt
if the program would be varied in iota. It is
not necessary to go into a detailed account of the murders.
In point of fact, very little is actually known on
that point. No one in the land of the living
will have the hardihood to say that he saw the
deeds done. And the Benders themselves never made a confession
(36:26):
that I know of. The McGregor liars were a little
off in their description of the murders. They always had
Kate or Maggie her cousin, or John cutting the heads
of the victims to pieces with hatchets, whereas they were
invariably brained with a hammer and their throats cut. The
introduction of the girl Maggie into the plot is something
(36:47):
new too, But with these little matters I have nothing
to do with this time. There may have been a Maggie,
and there may have been others implicated, but on this
point there is a death of positive knowledge. The Benders,
John and his wife and their two children. Kate and
John kept a wayside tavern about a mile and a
half southeast of Moorhead Station, on the road leading from
(37:08):
Independence to the Osage Mission. They were there when I
moved into the county, two years before the discovery of
the butcheries, and were well known then. Their plays had
a hard name, and it was understood to be the
headquarters of disreputable characters. Still, as nothing was ever laid
at their doors, the Benders were not molested. Kate and
(37:29):
John lived together as man and wife, but the woman
would smile upon the transient horse thief for cowboy when
a dollar was to be made that way. She was
a red faced, low browed, square shouldered amazon, strong enough
to throw a bull by the tail, and everybody stood
in awe of her. She made a pretense of practicing
the healing art, and was known far and wide as
(37:51):
a spiritualistic doctor. Her cures were permanent and her remedy
was a hammer decent. People avoided the Bender tap as
the country hereabouts harbored a good many desperados. About this time,
no one cared to raise a row, and the protest
went no further than avoidance. When serge was instituted for
(38:11):
the body of doctor Yorke, suspicion was directed against the Benders, and,
contrary to the general belief, a closed watch was kept
on them for a while. They must have been aware
of the surveillance for the first opportunity they decamped. The
report that they took the train at Thayre, a station
a few miles north of Cherryvale, and went to Humboldt,
(38:34):
from which place they took passage for Texas is a mistake.
They simply bundled their goods into two wagons and started
for the Indian territory. They did not proceed at once
to their destination, if indeed they had any destination marked out,
but crossed over into Montgomery County and squatted near the
Verdigorous River to await developments. The distance from their farm
(38:56):
was something like twenty miles. John Junior or John Senior
made daily trips back to the vicinity of Cherryvale and
took observations. It was their intention to return if the
excitement should blow over, but if it continued warm, they
would go on as originally planned. They knew of the
discovery of their crime within an hour after the bodies
were dug out of the shallow graves, and they lost
(39:18):
no time in striking their tents. They struck out for
the west bank of the river and started southward. Post taste,
their flight soon became a panic, and to add to
their discomfiture, one of their wagons broke down. Packing what
they could of the load on their horses, They piled
up on what was left, set fire to it, and
(39:39):
hurried on. In the meantime, a vigilance committee had been formed.
This move was taken with the greatest secrecy, and none
but trusty men were admitted to the organization. The utmost
circumspection was used for the reason that in a new
community like this, the doubtful assistance of suspicious characters was
a thing to be dreaded. The vigilantes did not number
(40:02):
more than one hundred men all told, but they meant business.
As the sequel proved, it was my good or bad
fortune to be one of the elect Scouts were sent
out in all directions, and within forty eight hours of
the departure of the Benders from their camp in the
next county, the fact was duly reported to us. About
(40:23):
forty of us organized into a pursuing party and started
after the butchers. Once on their trail, we had no
difficulty in following it. Their murderous quartet had taken to
the open country west of the river, but were keeping
within convenient distance of the black timber that grows in
the valley watered by this stream. They were expecting pursuit
(40:44):
and hoped to escape by losing themselves in this timber
if it came to the worst. As we proceeded, the
trail freshened, and ere long we came across the half
consumed ruins of the wagon left by the Benders in
their flight. From the direction they were it became evident
to the mind of those acquainted with the country that
they were pointing for that paradise of cutthroats located near
(41:07):
the mouth of the Red Fork of the Arkansas the
country hereabouts is a bleak and desolate region infested by horss, thieves,
half breed Creeks, Pawnees, and Cherokees. Once there, they knew
that they would be safe from pursuit. Even the United
States troops have never been able to penetrate that terra incognita.
(41:27):
It is a safe retreat for the border ruffians, and
is known to be such all through this section of
the country. This haven for the wicked is distant about
one hundred and forty miles from the point where the
Verdigrius River enters into Indian territory. The murderers had about
forty miles to travel before reaching the boundary of the territory,
(41:47):
and they were probably twenty miles beyond the line when
our scouts caught sight of them. Burdened as they were
with much cumbersome baggage, they had not been able to
make very great speed, but they had used every possible
effort to put space behind them. It was about three
o'clock on a hot, sultry May afternoon when we came
(42:08):
inside of the party. They saw us as soon as
we came from cover, and abandoning everything they broke for
the forest, they plunged into the woods and scattered. We
were close upon their heels, however, and they did not
succeed in eluding us long. The old man and his
wife and Kate were under arrest in less than an hour.
(42:28):
John Junior was more fortunate than the other members of
the tribe, for he contrived to evade us for an
hour longer, but he was at length run to cover
and forced to surrender. Every one of them showed fight,
but with the exception of Kate, they all weakened. When
it came to the scratch. The charming boarder Beauty emptied
every chamber of her revolver into our faces, but her
(42:51):
aim was bad, and she did no serious damage beyond
maiming one of our horses and clipping a lock of
hair from my temple. The bullet raised a ridge along
the skin, the work of which shows to this day.
She finally succumbed to superior strength, but to the last
maintained the same daredevil, reckless demeanor. Having captured the assassins,
(43:16):
the question now arose, what are we to do with them?
Some were for taking them back and letting the law
take its course. The advocates of this line of policy
were largely in the minority. There were those among us
whose relatives had fallen victim to the deadly hammers and
knives of the wretches, and they would not listen to
(43:37):
the suggestions of the conservative element. They threatened to do
some killing then and there if their demands for instant
vengeance were not regarded. No one would have offered a
very strenuous opposition if they had carried out their threats,
but it was thought best to do the job up
after the most approved form obtaining in the courts, presided
over by Judge Lynch, were accordingly arraigned and asked what
(44:02):
they had to say in their defense. The old woman
was sullen and ugly, but the two men showed signs
of faltering. Had they been left to themselves, they would
have made full confessions beyond a doubt. The amiable Kate
perceived this, and, thinking it would please the vigilantes too
much to hear their confessions, she fell to cursing her
(44:23):
brother and father for their cowardice. Fouler language was never
uttered than came from the lips of this fiend. No
term was too vile to apply to her relatives. They
took it sullenly at first, but soon something of her
reckless spirit infused them, and they too joined in the tirade.
The chorus of blasphemy that went up from that hardened
(44:44):
lot caused us shudder to run through our party. With
death staring them in the face, they united in cursing
us and lamenting their inability to do us harm. Such
malignancy I never saw equaled. Even the old woman chipped
in occasionally, and her appearance indicated that she wholly approved
of the family demonstration. When charged with the murderers laid
(45:08):
at their doors, the answer was a curse, followed by
more curses, and then a volley a fusillade of curses
and ribald abuse. Our court went through with the form prescribed,
and then pronounced the sentence of death. The announcement was
received with jeers from the hardened criminals, who had determined
to brave it out to the last. It was decided
(45:31):
that the murderers should be shot, as it would take
too much time to hang them. The sun was already
nearly down and the shadows of approaching night were deepening
there on the borders of the forest. The cruel killers
were tied to saplings, and told to prepare for death.
One of our number, who had not quite forgotten his
(45:52):
early education, undertook to offer a prayer. But the lovely
Kate spit in his face while he was addressing the
throne of grace, and he quit right in the middle
of a sentence and drew off in disgust. The four
died with curses on their lips, hardened and unrepentant to
the last. There in that lonely, dismal spot, away beyond
(46:17):
the confines of civilization, they met a righteous retribution, and
their souls, black with crime, were sent to meet the
great Judge. Their executioners treated them better than they treated
their innocent victims. They were killed quickly and painlessly, not
butchered brutally. To be sure. Not much time was wasted
(46:41):
in burial, and it was growing late, and the vigilantes
had a long ride before them. A hole made by
the displacement of the roots of a fallen cottonwood was
made a little bit larger and deeper, and the bodies
thrown in and hastily covered with loose earth rocks and brushwood.
This was all there was to the funeral. On reaching
(47:03):
the level again, the effects of the Benders were stacked
and burned as a sort of an offering to Heaven.
We then proceeded northward, separating before reaching the settlements, each
seeking his home quietly. There was no blow made about
our achievement, each man keeping his own counsel. The secret
(47:24):
was well kept, and it was weeks before outsiders stopped
prowling around in search of the Benders. Those immediately concerned
very speedily lost interest in the chase, however, and though
nothing was said on the subject, it came to be
tacitly understood throughout Labetta Montgomery Counties. It would be a
waste of time to prosecute inquiry further. This is the
(47:48):
true history of the fate of the Benders. And when
in the future you hear of the apprehension of any
of the tribe, you can put it down as a
canard signed Vigilante. This has been the Bloody Benders, a
(48:20):
serial killer. Clips edition of yesterday's news. The tale of
the Vigilante has the ring of truth to me. But
no one knows what really happened to the Bloody Benders.
And there were arrests made as late as eighteen eighty nine,
but no one ever stood trial for the innkeeping families
horrible crimes. On my website www dot truecrimehistorian dot com,
(48:44):
you can find source information on this episode, along with
links to websites with more information about the Bender family.
In the upper right hand corner, you'll also find a
button leading you to my social media pages. Click on that.
Leave me alike, give me a share or a retweet,
whatever you're in the mood for. Our relationship means a
(49:05):
lot to me, and your support allows me to continue
to find fresh stories every week about America's famous and
forgotten scandals, scoundrels, and scourges. If you look around on
the website, you'll also find a few ways to spend
some money too, buying some books or whatever, and that
also helps. Music by Chuck Wiggins. This is True Crime
(49:30):
Historian Richard O. Jones signing off for now. H
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