Bloody Benders

98

Bloody Benders : biography

Killing method

It is conjectured that when a guest would stay at the Benders’ bed and breakfast inn, the hosts would give the guest a seat of honor at the table which was positioned over a trap door that led into the cellar. With the victim’s back to the curtain Kate would distract the guest, while John Bender or his son would come from behind the curtain and strike the guest on the right side of the skull with a hammer. The victim’s throat was then cut by one of the women to ensure his death. The body was then dropped through the trap door. Once in the cellar, the body would be stripped and later buried somewhere on the property, often in the orchard. More than a dozen bullet holes were found in the roof and sides of the room and the media speculated that some of the victims had attempted to fight back after being hit with the hammer. Scanned page of The Weekly Kansas chief. (Troy, Kansas) May 22, 1873. Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, KS.

Escape

Detectives following wagon tracks discovered the Benders’ wagon, abandoned with a starving team of horses with one of the mares lame, just outside the city limits of Thayer, north of the inn. It was confirmed that in Thayer the family bought tickets on the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Railroad for Humboldt. At Chanute, John Jr. and Kate left the train and caught the MK&T train south to the terminus in Red River County near Denison, Texas. From there they traveled to an outlaw colony thought to be in the border region between Texas and New Mexico. They were not pursued as lawmen following outlaws into this region often never returned. One detective did claim later that he had traced the pair to the border where he had found that John Jr. had died of apoplexy. Ma and Pa Bender did not leave the train at Humboldt, but instead continued north to Kansas City where it is believed they purchased tickets for St. Louis, Missouri.

Several groups of vigilantes were formed to search for the Benders. Many stories say that one vigilante group actually caught the Benders and shot all of them but Kate, whom they burned alive. Another group claimed they had caught the Benders and lynched them before throwing their bodies into the Verdigris River. Yet another claimed to have killed the Benders during a gunfight and buried their bodies on the prairie. However, no one ever claimed the $3,000 (2009: $53,000) reward.

The story of their escape spread, and the search continued on and off for the next fifty years. Often, groups of two traveling women were accused of being Kate Bender and her mother.

In 1884, it was reported that John Flickinger had committed suicide in Lake Michigan. Also in 1884 an elderly man matching Pa Benders description was arrested in Montana for a murder committed near Salmon, Idaho where the victim had been killed by a hammer blow to the head. A message requesting positive identification was sent to Cherryvale but the suspect severed his foot to escape his leg irons and bled to death. By the time a deputy from Cherryvale arrived, identification was impossible due to decomposition. Despite the lack of identification, the man’s skull was displayed as that of "Pa Bender" in a Salmon saloon until prohibition forced its closure in 1920 and the skull disappeared. Whether or not John Flickinger was really John Bender is unknown.

Victims

  • 1869: Joe Sowers. Found with a crushed skull and throat cut but not believed to be a Bender victim.
  • May 1871: Mr Jones. Body found in Drum Creek with a crushed skull and throat cut.
  • Winter 1871/1872: Two unidentified men found on the prairie in February 1872 with crushed skulls and throats cut.
  • 1872: Ben Brown. From Howard County, Kansas. $2,600 (2009: $46,000) missing. Buried in the apple orchard.
  • 1872: W.F. McCrotty. Co D 123rd Ill Infantry. $38 (2009: $672) and a wagon with a team of horses missing.
  • December, 1872: Henry McKenzie. Relocating to Independence from Hamilton County, Indiana. $36 (2000: $637) and a matched team of horses missing.
  • December, 1872: Johnny Boyle. From Howard County, Kansas. $10 (2009: $177), a pacing mare and an $850 (2009: $14,875) saddle missing. Found in the Benders well.
  • December, 1872: George Newton Longcor and his 18 months old daughter, Mary Ann. 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. According to the 1870 census, George and his wife, Mary Jane, were neighbors of Charles Ingalls and family in Independence while his wife’s parents lived two houses away. Following the deaths of his infant son Robert from pneumonia in May 1871 and that of his 21 year old wife Mary Jane (née Gilmore) following the birth of Mary Ann several months later, George was likely returning to the home of his parents, Anthony and Mary (Hughes) Longcor, in Lee County, Iowa. In preparation for his return to Iowa, George had purchased a team of horses from his neighbor, Dr. William Henry York, who later went looking for George and was also murdered; both were veterans of the Civil War. $1,900 (2009: $33,600) missing. The daughter was thought to have been buried alive, but not proven. No injuries were found on her body, and she was fully clothed, including mittens and hood. Both were buried together in the apple orchard.
  • May, 1873: Dr William York. $2,000 (2009: $35,000) missing. Buried in the apple orchard.
  • ?: John Greary. Buried in the apple orchard.
  • ?: Unidentified male. Buried in the apple orchard.
  • ?: Unidentified female. Buried in the apple orchard.
  • ?: Various body parts. The parts did not belong to any of the other victims found.
  • 1873: During the search, the bodies of four unidentified males were found in Drum Creek and the surrounds. All four had crushed skulls and throats cut. One may be Jack Bogart, whose horse was purchased from a friend of the Benders after he went missing in 1872.

With the exception of McKenzie, York who were buried in Independence and the Longcors who were buried in Montgomery Co and McCrotty who was buried in Parsons, Kansas, none of the other bodies were claimed and they were reburied at the base of a mound south-east of the Benders orchard. The search of the cabin resulted in the recovery of three hammers that had been used as murder weapons. These hammers were given to the Bender museum in 1967 by the son of LeRoy Dick, the Osage Township Trustee who headed the search of the Bender property. The hammers were displayed at the Bender Museum in Cherryvale, Kansas from 1967 to 1978 when the site was acquired for a fire station. When attempts were made to relocate the museum it became a point of controversy with locals objecting to the town being known for the Bender murders. The Bender artifacts were eventually given to the Cherryvale Museum.