Their murders were carried out by use of a canvas curtain that divided the house into two rooms. If you live in that town in Kansas today, oh yeah you know about it. 1. Ransom, the trains conductor, said that John, Jr., and Kate disembarked at Chanute and took the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad train south to the Red River country near Dennison, Texas, which was then the terminus of the railroad. "The Bender Family Some New Light on Their Mysterious Disappearance". Nice, in all my research on serial killers, I can't name many examples of a full family of murderers, and two of them were female, another rarity. Mrs. Bender, a heavyset woman, was so unfriendly and had such sinister eyes that her neighbors began to call her a she-devil. To add to her fierce look, Ma Bender claimed to be a medium who could speak with the dead and boiled herbs and roots that she declared could be used to cast charms or wicked spells. In total, 12 men "of bad repute in general" would be arrested, including Brockman. When the vigilantegroup approached, the Benders fired on them, at which time, the judge lost part of his ear to a flying bullet. 11) December 1872: Red Smith. I haven't heard Macabre in years. After the third hanging, they released him and he staggered home "as one who was drunken or deranged. Johnny Boyles body was found in the well. Satchel tries looking for Rabbi, but a short conversation with the hospital man and a glimpse of the preacher and his mother folding a flag in their underwear (night wear?) Though most were led to believe John and Kate were sister and brother, others said that they sometimes passed as man and wife. Leona Laurie is a Senior Contributor for Geek Girl Authority and co-host of the Marvel-Us podcast. When neighboring communities started to make slanderous insinuations, the Osage Township called a meeting held at the Harmony Grove schoolhouse in March to see what, if anything, could be done. While popular retelling of the story holds that John Jr. and Kate were siblings, contemporary newspapers reported . A Catholic priest claimed to have seen one of the Bender men concealing a large hammer, at which point he became uncomfortable and quickly departed. Fact or fiction, no one knows, but Ive always enjoyed the tale and hope you will as well. 215 East 4th Street [5][6], Around the same time, neighboring communities began to make accusations that the Osage community was responsible for the disappearances, and Osage township arranged a meeting in the Harmony Grove schoolhouse. Cherryvale Museum According to the May 23, 1873 edition of The Emporia News, he was identified with the name of William Bender. When he pulls into the drive, he spots Calamitas empty car at the pump immediately. State Senator Alexander York offered a $1,000 ($22,619 as of 2023) reward for the family's arrest. The parts did not belong to any of the other victims found and are believed to belong to at least three additional victims. Some believe justice came to them in the end. The Benders remained silent when most of the attendees volunteered to have their premises searched. Located on a main road, the Benders sold meals and supplies to travelers. Each season of Fargo stands alone - you can watch them all out of order and still be able to understand what's going on. As they enter the location, named The Barton Arms, the clerk eventually gives Rabbi keys for the west side, though she lets him know that the sisters don't care much for Coloreds. The "Bloody Benders" were a German family of four that settled a claim in southeastern Kansas in Labette County. Hes connected to a medical machine and has a hovering attendant with goggles on, ministering to him with a hypodermic needle. Sometime later, Billy Tole, a neighbor of the Benders, noticed that the Bender Inn was abandoned and their farm animals unfed. Mrs. Monroe now admitted she had married a Mr. Shearer in 1872 and claimed she had previously denied it, as she did not want the court to know that her name was Shearer at that time and that she had a conviction for manslaughter. Cherryvale, Kansas Museum 6) December 1872: Henry McKenzie. Calamita is swept up into the funnel, along with the filling station and the bodies littering its floors. rpp program apartments newport news. While not actually on the old Bender property, the marker sits on the high prairie about a mile northwest of Bender Mounds at the US-400 and US-169 interchange at the Montgomery County Rest area, north of Cherryvale. According to the Pittsburgh Dispatch, the daughter of one of the Benders' victims, Mrs. Frances E. McCann, had reported the pair to authorities in early October after tracking them down. I'd need to check but my gut feeling is that its real. The next morning, another eight bodies were found in seven of the nine suspected graves, while one was found in the well, along with a number of body parts. They buried their victims in a neighboring orchard, unbeknownst to the townspeople. Allegedly, while working at the Bender Inn, she earned her keep as a prostitute, adding an additional amount to the travelers bill for the privilege of laying with her. did phineas and ferb die in a car accident. In 1937 she gave a speech at a book fair which was later transcribed and printed in the September 1978 Saturday Evening Post and in the 1988 book A Little House Sampler. What little he did speak was so guttural that it was usually unintelligible. They admitted Dr. York had stayed with them and suggested the possibility that he had run into trouble with Indians. While the two women were certainly criminals and liars, as their own defense attorney admitted, the charges were weak and many people doubted their identification as the Benders. Many innocent men under suspicion were also run out of the county by these committees.[5]. It first seems like Rabbi might escape, but ultimately he raises his hands in surrender and flies up into the clouds. Yeah! [7], A bad odor was noticed and traced to a trap door underneath a bed, nailed shut. Continuing, they began to dig around the cabin, especially in an area the Benders had utilized as a vegetable garden and orchard. Advertisement Coins. NEW YORK The Occupy Wall Street movement has close to $300,000, as well as storage space loaded with donated supplies in lower Manhattan. 1315) December 1872: Various body parts. One of the women would cut the victim's throat to ensure death, and the body was then dropped through the trap door. She mentioned stopping at the inn, as well as recounting the rumors of the murders spreading through their community. Standing over six feet tall, John was a giant of a man who, because of his piercing black eyes set deeply under huge bushy brows, earned him the nickname of old beetle-browed John. His ruddy face, mostly covered by a heavy beard, sullen expression, and long hair often led to him being described as a wild and wooly-looking man.. Both knew of his travel plans, and when he failed to return home, an all-out search began for the missing doctor. It says this home used to be run by the infamous Mellon Family, who lured travelers in before killing them with a hammer. Donald's family owns successful McDonald's franchises in their home town of Phoenix, Arizona. (In case you wondered after reading that, like I did, what year The Mulligan Concern arrived in Kansas City, it was 1920. [1][3] On April 3, Colonel York returned to the inn with armed men after being informed that a woman had fled from the inn after Elvira Bender had threatened her with knives. [5], Three days after the township meeting, Billy Tole was driving cattle past the Bender property when he noticed that the inn was abandoned and the farm animals were unfed. ", "Young Bender, seen when excited, recalled the grave-robbing hyena at once to mind. Inside the wooden cabin, the area was partitioned with a large canvas, creating living quarters in the back and a small inn and store in the front. The vacated land was then made available to homesteaders, who, for the most part, were a group of hard-working pioneers farming the areas softly rolling hills and windswept prairies. After Colonel Yorks visit and the meeting at the Harmony Grove schoolhouse, the Bender family fled. This is blatantly a reference to the Bender Family, a family of serial killers from late 1800s Kansas. The Benders then stripped him of his clothes and went to bury him when the man suddenly awoke. John Bender, Jr. was actually a man named John Gebhardt. The reason theyre heading toward Liberal is that Rabbi spent enough time there at some point to have stashed $5000 in a feed store in case he needed it. Calcium, iron, manganese, zinc, magnesium, selenium, and copper are especially concentrated in sunflower seeds. When a traveler was seated at the table, his head was outlined against the curtain. Finally, unsolved murders in Shawnee County, Kansas, can be found among these lists. However, by the time the men arrived at the Benders cabin very early the next morning, they found them gone. Prying it open, the men found a six-foot-deep hole filled with clotted blood, causing a terrible odor. Today, Smalley descendants continue to live in the Neodosha and Cherryvale area. Her husband and son were said to have feared her as she ran the household with an iron hand. Dr. York had two brothers, one living in Fort Scott and the other in Independence. The Bender cabin was ripped apart by gruesome souvenir hunters right down to the bloody bricks that lined the cellar. Because some of the travelers were carrying nothing of value, it was widely speculated that the Benders killed simply for the bloody thrill of it. These include the 2012 murder of Quan Donnell, the 1996 murder of Michelle Hutchinson, the 2013 murder of Juan Solis, and the 2016 murder of Robert Williams, among countless others. However, there were no bodies in the hole. They were never caugnt. Hunza Guides is Pakistan's top mountain destination management company offering full board tours, trekking and expeditions services in Pakistan. His family was from the Cherryvale, Kansas area, and the story involves a group of men that found the Benders and were in a gunfight with them, one of whom was a judge that lost part of his ear in the gun battle. The petite auburn-haired beauty desired notoriety and often advocated free love and justification for murder in her lectures. Four other bodies with crushed skulls and slit throats were also found outside the property in Drum Creek and on the surrounding prairie. When friends and family began to look for them, they could trace them as far as the Big Hill Country of southeast Kansas before finding no trace of the lost traveler. William Pickering said that when he had refused to sit near the wagon cloth because of the stains on it, Kate Bender had threatened him with a knife, whereupon he fled the premises. The Bloody Benders - Serial Killers of Kansas Bender Mounds, Kansas by Kathy Alexander. John Bender, Jr. was a tall, slender man of about 25 who was handsome with auburn hair and a mustache. Their downfall was the murder of a father and daughter named Loncher, and Dr. William York, who had come looking for the missing pair. She also conducted sances and gave lectures on spiritualism, for which she gained notoriety for advocating free love. The Benders used the smaller room at the rear for living quarters, while the front room was converted into a "general store" where a few dry goods were sold. [7], They then probed the ground around the cabin with a metal rod, especially in the disturbed soil of the vegetable garden and orchard, where Dr. York's body was found later that evening, buried face down with his feet barely below the surface. Subreddit for the FX original TV series, Fargo. The sensational tales and rumors of the Benders continued well into the 20th century, but what happened to them remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the Old West. Touch for map. . It was confirmed that the family had bought tickets on the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Railroad for Humboldt. The episode opens with Omie Sparkman (Corey Hendrix) pulling into a filling station on a desolate road in Kansas. No documentation or definitive proof of their relationships to one another, or where they were born, has ever been found. As more and more travelers disappeared, suspicion began to center on the Benders. Catch up here! Other bodies found in the garden were those of Henry McKenzies mutilated remains, three men by the names of Ben Brown, W.F. After last weeks sincere entry into all-out war, as well as the deaths of several key players, one might have hoped to watch the action in Kansas City escalate. $2,000 (2023: $45,239) missing. From there, they traveled to an outlaw colony thought to be in the border region between Texas and New Mexico. Yet another group claimed to have killed the Benders during a gunfight and buried their bodies on the prairie. This one would make a great show/movie, but we keep seeing remakes and reboots. McCrotty. Originally scheduled for February 1890, the trial was held over to May. The filling station attendant tells Omie that this is the only place for gas for miles, and that if Calamita hasnt been through yet, he definitely will. Although the elder Benders kept to themselves, Kate and her brother regularly attended Sunday school in nearby Harmony Grove. Contemporary newspapers reported his name as either "George W. Longcor" or "George Loncher," while Mary Ann is similarly reported as being either eight years old or 18 months old. In 1884, it was reported that John Flickinger had committed suicide in Lake Michigan. The digging continued the next day; nine other bodies and numerous dismembered body parts were found, including a woman and a little girl. Bender Mounds, Kansas by Kathy Alexander. On May 17, Kansas Governor Thomas A. Osborn offered a $2,000 ($45,239 as of 2023) reward for the apprehension of all four. In her lectures she publicly declared that murder might be a dictation for good; that in what the world might deem villainy, her soul might read bravery, nobility, and humanity. Whether the stuff of folklore or fact, many believe that the trapped souls of these century-old ghosts continue to lurk at the site today. 1619) December 1872: During the search, the bodies of four unidentified males were found in Drum Creek and the surrounds. All but one had their heads bashed with a hammer and throats cut, and newspapers reported that all were "indecently mutilated. The search of the cabin resulted in the recovery of three hammers: a shoe hammer, a claw hammer, and a sledgehammer that appeared to match indentations in some of the skulls. 12) December 1872: Abigail Roberts. With the victim's back to the curtain, Kate would distract the guest while John Bender or his son came from behind the curtain and struck the guest on the right side of the skull with a hammer. McCrotty, and John Geary, as well as an unidentified male and female. The violence at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999 was the watershed event which led to the creation of our current day active shooter response programs. (AP) - A man already in prison . For years, sightings of Ma Bender and Kate were reported, and in 1889, two women were extradited from Michigan on the charge. If this really is Oz, then Satchel is Dorothy and Rabbit is Toto. It declares, THE FUTURE IS NOW.. Look for these with their cute sunflowers. Shortly thereafter, the family disappeared. It would make for a fun season of the show that's for sure. At this point the customers felt uneasy and decided to leave, a move that almost certainly saved their lives. Another group claimed they had caught the Benders while escaping to the south and lynched them before throwing their bodies into the Verdigris River. Yep the Abberdeens are very clearly based on the Benders, specifically Kate and John Jr. In The Wizard of Oz, things are in black and white in Kansas and turn color after the Cyclone drops Dorothy and Toto in Oz. The wall wherein he hid his cash is gone, and he knows with certainty that the brothers found it. Legends of America founder Kathy Weiser-Alexander hams it up for Discovery Channel producers for the show Evil Kin, episode 2, season 2, The Bloody Benders, original air date August 12. East/West may *look* like a detour into surrealist Midcentury Italian cinema when it opens, but the minute the wind starts blowing through black and white Kansas you know where you are. She maintained carnal relations with her brother, and boldly proclaimed her right to do so in the following words found in her lecture manuscript: "Shall we confine ourselves to a single love, and deny our natures their proper sway?Even though it be a brother's passion for his own sister, I say it should not be smothered. [1][2] Although some of the victims were wealthy, others carried little of value on them, and it was surmised that the Benders had killed them simply for the sheer thrill. Although stories abound, the ultimate fate of the murderous Mellon family was never discovered. She was 20 at the time of her death. By the time a deputy from Cherryvale arrived, identification was impossible due to decomposition. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/washingtonhistor0014unse The CAashington Historical . At her hearing, Mrs. Monroe denied any knowledge of Shearer or the manslaughter charge and remained incarcerated with her daughter. They were released after being found not guilty, but were then immediately re-arrested for the Bender murders. RELATED: Missed the last episode? However, none of these tales were confirmed, nor were bodies found, so most thought that the Benders had managed to escape. One of those places was the Bender Inn. Records of the incarceration back up this affidavit. A beautiful girl of about 23, she was quick to laugh and talk to strangers. 2014. They were never caugnt. As word of the grisly murders spread, more and more travelers came forward to tell their own stories of a narrow escape, including one gentleman named William Pickering. [18], A historical marker describing the Benders' crimes is located in the rest area at the junction of U.S. Route 400 and U.S. Route 169 north of Cherryvale. All had been involved in disposing of the victims' stolen goods with Mit Cherry, a member of the vigilance committee, implicated for forging a letter from one of the victims, informing the man's wife that he had arrived safely at his destination in Illinois.
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