American Monsters: The Bloody Benders
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Sources:
https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ks-benders/ https://crimereads.com/the-bloody-benders-americas-first-family-of-serial-killers/ https://thecabininthewoods.fandom.com/wiki/The_Buckner_Family#:~:text=Except%20for%20the%20undead%2Fparanormal,travelers%20between%201871%20to%201873
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/bloody-benders-true-story-kate-bender-crimes-susan-jonusas.html https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/bloody-benders
https://medium.com/internet-archaeology/the-bastardized-story-of-the-bloody-benders-a203fb0e419a
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Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
Speaker 1: Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and
Speaker 1: descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and
Speaker 1: we recommend you stop listening now.
Speaker 2: Language true crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish,
Speaker 2: the strange, in the darkly comic. I'm Zevan Odelberg, host
Speaker 2: of Kind of Murdery, a podcast that's about more than
Speaker 2: just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension, home to
Speaker 2: a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories, the unsolved,
Speaker 2: the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it all just
Speaker 2: so long as it's kind of murdery. That guy was
Speaker 2: telling you the truth. He was me. I am Zevan Odelberg,
Speaker 2: and this is kind of murdery. With that and no
Speaker 2: further ado, we're gonna jump right in. Please join me
Speaker 2: right now as we uncover what truths we can and
Speaker 2: solve what mysteries we may kind of murderies. Don't look
Speaker 2: behind the curtain. Murder at the Bender Inn starts now.
Speaker 2: In eighteen sixty two, the Homestead Act opened a new
Speaker 2: chapter in American history at a time when the nation
Speaker 2: was deeply divided by Civil War. This legislation promised a
Speaker 2: fresh start for many who dared to dream. Amidst a
Speaker 2: wild landscape burgeoning with hope and transformation, settlers headed west,
Speaker 2: among them the Bender family, who laid down roots in
Speaker 2: Labette County, Oklahoma. The land they chose was not unoccupied.
Speaker 2: The Osage Indians had once called the place home before
Speaker 2: being forcibly displaced to clear the way for new settlers.
Speaker 2: The untamed landscapes of what would become Kansas Territory began
Speaker 2: to slowly change. By October eighteen seventy, a trickle of families,
Speaker 2: each carrying their hopes and secrets, ventured into the newly
Speaker 2: available lands, choosing to establish their homes and lives around
Speaker 2: seven miles from the burgeoning city of Cherryville. One of
Speaker 2: those families seeking a new chapter in the rugged frontier
Speaker 2: were the Benders. They moved onto one hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: acre property facing the well traveled Osage Trail. It was
Speaker 2: a land of promise and potential. The Benders were newcomers
Speaker 2: to the community, part of a tidal wave of humanity
Speaker 2: seeking to carve out their destiny on the American frontier.
Speaker 2: The Bender's story, like that of so many others, was
Speaker 2: set against a backdrop of national aspiration and personal endeavor, and, sadly,
Speaker 2: as I mentioned previously, forced relocation and genocide against the
Speaker 2: Native peoples. With all of this happening in the background,
Speaker 2: no one could possibly suspect that the tale of the
Speaker 2: Bender family would become an unforgettable chapter in the annals
Speaker 2: of American folklore. The Bender's property had a panoramic view
Speaker 2: of the Osage Trail, which was frequented by settlers, traders,
Speaker 2: and others seeking fortunes in the West. It was a
Speaker 2: strategic location that offered both isolation and access to a
Speaker 2: flow of potential visitors, a dual promise of solitude and opportunity.
Speaker 2: This property would soon become both home and something more sinister,
Speaker 2: though at the moment it was just another parcel in
Speaker 2: a land of endless possibilities. The patriarch and the heir,
Speaker 2: John Bender Senior and John Bender Junior, were the vanguard
Speaker 2: of their family's journey to a new life. They arrived
Speaker 2: carrying with them the scent of foreign soil, believed to
Speaker 2: have been originated from Germany. John Bender Senior was an
Speaker 2: imposing man around sixty years old. His visage etched with
Speaker 2: years of hardship. English words seldom escaped his lips, and
Speaker 2: when they did, they were weighed down by a thick,
Speaker 2: guttural accent that marked him as an outsider. His son,
Speaker 2: John Bender Junior, twenty five, and already soaked in his
Speaker 2: father's complex legacy, was an enigma of his own. He
Speaker 2: spoke English relatively well, albeit with a noticeable accent, and
Speaker 2: had a tendency to break into inexplicable laughter. This unsettling
Speaker 2: habit led the locals, who found it difficult to decipher
Speaker 2: his character, to hastily label him a half wit. In
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy one, the Bender women arrived to complete the family. Elvira,
Speaker 2: or Ma as she was known, was a woman of
Speaker 2: about fifty five years. Her English skills were rudimentary at best,
Speaker 2: and her demeanor was so stern and unapproachable that the locals,
Speaker 2: unable to pierce her tough exterior, named her the she Devil.
Speaker 2: The Bender's tapestry of personalities and mysteries seemed to invite
Speaker 2: both scrutiny and speculation, yet it was precisely the kind
Speaker 2: of family one could imagine struggling and thriving in the
Speaker 2: unforgiving American Frontier. It's crucial to understand that beneath the
Speaker 2: quirks and idiosyncrasies of each Bender family member lay the
Speaker 2: universal human desires for community, prosperity, and perhaps for redemption,
Speaker 2: or so it seemed. But could such a complex web
Speaker 2: of human needs and ambitions come without a price. Well,
Speaker 2: As the saying goes, every family has its secrets, and
Speaker 2: the Benders were no exception. The youngest member, Kate Bender,
Speaker 2: was the family's magnetic lynchpin, a woman of twenty three,
Speaker 2: possessing a slender, yet curvaceous figure that seemed sculpted to
Speaker 2: attract attention. Her eyes were always bright and calculating, and
Speaker 2: often accompanied by a coi, almost impish smile, hinting its
Speaker 2: secrets yet to be divulged. It wasn't just her physical
Speaker 2: allure that captivated people. Kate held a certain intellectual mystique.
Speaker 2: She professed herself a healer and a psychic, conducting seances
Speaker 2: and claiming curative powers for various ailments. Yet what set
Speaker 2: her apart and added a layer of societal titillation, was
Speaker 2: her vocal advocacy for free love. Not just a casual
Speaker 2: attitude toward romantic relationship, but a deep seated belief in
Speaker 2: sexual liberation and the moral bankruptcy of traditional marital constraints.
Speaker 2: This was no small thing in the societal context of
Speaker 2: the late nineteenth century, and it brought an eclectic and
Speaker 2: sometimes desperate clientele to the Bender Homestead. Their home was
Speaker 2: a deceptively inviting one, a canvas partition neatly divided the
Speaker 2: family's private quarters from a makeshift general store and dining area.
Speaker 2: Travelers weary from their jury along the arduous Osage Trail,
Speaker 2: would find solace there, or so they believed. Yet as
Speaker 2: whispers about mysterious disappearances and unexplained deaths intensified, suspicions insidiously
Speaker 2: began to gravitate toward the Bender Inn. Kate's sensually captivating
Speaker 2: presence was an intricate facade that masked the deeper complexities
Speaker 2: of the Bender Homestead. What appeared to be a sanctuary
Speaker 2: amid the stark Kansas terrain would soon force the community
Speaker 2: to question the very nature of trust itself. Gradually, the
Speaker 2: seemingly idyllic appearance of Bender Inn began to crumble, revealing
Speaker 2: a much darker narrative. Initially seen as a sanctuary for
Speaker 2: weary travelers, the establishment would soon become the episent of
Speaker 2: an unfolding horror story that gripped the region. The nightmare
Speaker 2: began in the month of May eighteen seventy one, in
Speaker 2: the remote expanse of Drum Creek, a waterway lying ominously
Speaker 2: to the southeast of the Bender estate, a man's life
Speaker 2: was shockingly extinguished. His corpse bore the hallmarks of extraordinary brutality,
Speaker 2: a skull shattered as if struck by unbridled force, and
Speaker 2: a throat that had been so deeply and malevolently slashed
Speaker 2: it bore the signature of sheer sadism. This wasn't an
Speaker 2: act of random violence or an unfortunate mishap. This was
Speaker 2: a calculated, vicious assault, a dreadful prolog to a series
Speaker 2: of events that would eventually send ripples of terror throughout
Speaker 2: the community. Then, in February of eighteen seventy two, as
Speaker 2: winter's grip began to relent, the horror metastasized. Two additional
Speaker 2: men were discovered, their lifeless bodies bearing identical Macob traits,
Speaker 2: skulls crushed with dreadful precision, and throats slashed as if
Speaker 2: part of a grim ritual. By the time the autumn
Speaker 2: leaves began to color the Kansas landscape. Later that year,
Speaker 2: people traversing the once bustling O Sage Trail found themselves
Speaker 2: enveloped in an aura of palpable dread. Word of these
Speaker 2: ghastly murders and mysterious vanishings seeped into the local consciousness,
Speaker 2: compelling travelers to seek alternate routes to avoid becoming the
Speaker 2: next grim headline. During this unsettling period, vigilante groups, fueled
Speaker 2: by a mix of desperation and feudal courage, took matters
Speaker 2: into their own hands. Their expeditions were marked by a
Speaker 2: chaotic urgency of frantic grasping for justice and a world
Speaker 2: suddenly turned upside down. Yet, despite their impassioned efforts, these
Speaker 2: amateur posses yielded little more than false arrests and the
Speaker 2: sporadic release of innocent men, failing to stem the tide
Speaker 2: of dread that had so consumed the community. The pivotal
Speaker 2: moment in this ominous tale came when George Newton longcoor
Speaker 2: known by some simply as Long, mysteriously disappeared. Longcore wasn't
Speaker 2: traveling alone. Accompanying him was his eighteen month old daughter,
Speaker 2: Mary Anne. Both were navigating the burden of recent loss.
Speaker 2: Longcour's wife had passed away, leaving him a widower with
Speaker 2: his world up ended, and Longcour made the heart wrenching
Speaker 2: decision to leave Independence, Kansas for the promise of a
Speaker 2: new life in Iowa. Tragically, neither he nor his baby
Speaker 2: daughter would reach that hoped for sanctuary. After Longcour disappeared,
Speaker 2: doctor William Henry York triggered alarm bells. Doctor York was
Speaker 2: not just some peripheral figure in Longcourt's life. York was
Speaker 2: a former neighbor and friend, and their connection was deep
Speaker 2: and meaningful. In fact, it was doctor York who had
Speaker 2: sold Longcour the horses and the wagon for his journey
Speaker 2: and exchanged that in hindsight, took on a poignant, tragic significance.
Speaker 2: The moment doctor York received news that Longcourp's horses and
Speaker 2: wagon were found unattended near Fort Scott, Kansas, he knew
Speaker 2: in his life bones that something was deeply wrong. These
Speaker 2: were not just any horses, and this was not just
Speaker 2: any wagon. They were the very animals and cart that
Speaker 2: Longcoor had acquired from him with the hopes of a
Speaker 2: new life, a new beginning their discovery shattered any remnants
Speaker 2: of normality, imbuing the quest for answers with an intensity
Speaker 2: that went beyond professional interest or community duty. For doctor York,
Speaker 2: this was personal, a heartbreaking betrayal of the camaraderie, the
Speaker 2: shared conversations, and the neighborly bonds that knit a community together.
Speaker 2: Doctor York had dined with Longcor, had laughed and mourned
Speaker 2: with him. They were men bound not just by proximity,
Speaker 2: but by the shared humanity that turns neighbors into friends.
Speaker 2: The unexplained disappearance of George Newton, Longcore and his daughter
Speaker 2: Mary Anne rattled doctor Yorke to his core, filling him
Speaker 2: with an urgency to bring clarity to a community clouded
Speaker 2: by fear and suspicion. Thus, he became a driving force
Speaker 2: in the quest to unravel the disturbing series of events
Speaker 2: along the Osage Trail, a journey that would soon reveal
Speaker 2: the sinister depths to which humanity could sink. In the
Speaker 2: spring of eighteen seventy three, with a steely resolve that
Speaker 2: was both personal and communal, Doctor York embarked on his
Speaker 2: quest to uncover the fate of George Newton and his daughter.
Speaker 2: One could sense the weight of his mission as he
Speaker 2: saddled up, eyes narrowing in on the horizon, each step
Speaker 2: of his horse, carrying with it a sense of duty.
Speaker 2: Doctor York meandered through the rugged trails, engaging with local homesteaders,
Speaker 2: eyes scanning for any sign, any shred of evidence that
Speaker 2: could bring peace to a community riddled with dread, that
Speaker 2: could bring peace to his own beating heart. He eventually
Speaker 2: arrived in Fort Scott, where his worst fears were confirmed.
Speaker 2: The horses and wagon, undeniably the same ones he had
Speaker 2: sold to Longcoorp, were found abandoned. To add a layer
Speaker 2: of heart wrenching certainty, he even identified clothes garments that
Speaker 2: once covered the bodies of longcor and his daughter as
Speaker 2: belonging to them. For doctor York, it was a moment
Speaker 2: fraught with both revelation and so sorrow, confirmation that his
Speaker 2: friend and the young child were not just missing, but
Speaker 2: had meant a more horrible end. But then, on his
Speaker 2: journey back to independence, doctor York made a faithful and
Speaker 2: ultimately tragic decision. The man who had set forth to
Speaker 2: solve a mystery would himself become enshrouded in it. He
Speaker 2: decided to stop at the Bender Inn, perhaps lured by
Speaker 2: its faux hospitality, or possibly thinking he could glean some
Speaker 2: additional clues. What we know for certain is this doctor
Speaker 2: William Henry Yorke walked into the Bender Inn, but he
Speaker 2: never ever walked out. His disappearance didn't just deepen the mystery,
Speaker 2: it personally implicated his community forever, altering the narrative of
Speaker 2: the O Sage Trail and sealing his own place in
Speaker 2: its grim chronicle. And unbeknownst to the Benders, they had
Speaker 2: tangled with a family not easily dismissed. Doctor Yorke's brothers
Speaker 2: were no ordinary men. Colonel Ed Yorke had a military background,
Speaker 2: while Alexander Muwe York was an influential figure in the
Speaker 2: political realm, serving as a member of the Kansas State Senate.
Speaker 2: Alarmed by the disappearance of their sibling, Colonel Yorke wasted
Speaker 2: no time in mobilizing a search party of seventy five men.
Speaker 2: The men scoured the countryside, and by March of eighteen
Speaker 2: seventy three, their investigative compass pointed them directly to bender In.
Speaker 2: Colonel York, armed with purpose, confronted the Benders in a
Speaker 2: chillingly casual manner. The family denied any involvement in the
Speaker 2: vanishing of doctor York. They deflected suspicion by suggesting that
Speaker 2: the physician might have encountered violence near Drum Creek. John
Speaker 2: Junior even added a layer of diversion by recounting how
Speaker 2: he himself had been shot at in the same area
Speaker 2: roughly around the time doctor York had gone missing. Colonel
Speaker 2: Yorke found himself in a precarious position. While his instincts
Speaker 2: told him something was a miss, the absence of tangible
Speaker 2: evidence tying the Benders to his brother's disappearance forced him
Speaker 2: to make a reluctant exit from their property. As he left,
Speaker 2: he couldn't help but scent that this encounter was far
Speaker 2: from over. The atmosphere was thick with tension, the kind
Speaker 2: that precedes a storm. Colonel Yorke and his search party
Speaker 2: may have left the Bender in that day, but the
Speaker 2: quest for truth had only intensified, and Colonel Yorke wasn't
Speaker 2: one to abandon a mission unfinished. As the days passed,
Speaker 2: additional damning evidence against the Benders began to accumulate. Armed
Speaker 2: with new information, Colonel Yorke returned to the bender In
Speaker 2: on April third, this time flanked by men carrying firearms.
Speaker 2: They meant business. The confrontation reached a boiling point when
Speaker 2: Colonel Yorke questioned the family about a chilling account from
Speaker 2: a woman who said she had narrowly escaped the inn
Speaker 2: after al Vira brandished knives and pistols at her. Initially,
Speaker 2: Alvira feigned ignorance, pretending as if the English language was
Speaker 2: foreigned to her. However, when Colonel Yorke persisted in his allegations,
Speaker 2: Alvira's mask shattered, suddenly bursting into fluent English. She railed
Speaker 2: against the woman's claim, accusing her of having, of all things,
Speaker 2: cursed her coffee. Losing control of her long practice pantomime,
Speaker 2: Elvira ordered Colonel Yorke and his men to leave her
Speaker 2: property at once, but the damage was done. Elvira had
Speaker 2: unwittingly revealed herself, demonstrating not only her fluency in English,
Speaker 2: but also a glimpse of her genuine, malicious temperament. This
Speaker 2: slip on Elvira's part only fortified Colonel Yorke's conviction. Although
Speaker 2: the family had forcibly expelled Colonel Yorke, and his armed
Speaker 2: crew from their homestead. He left knowing that he had
Speaker 2: peeled back another layer of deceit shrouding the Bender family.
Speaker 2: The stakes had risen, and the countdown to unmasking the
Speaker 2: chilling reality had begun. In a surprising move, perhaps sensing
Speaker 2: the net closing in, Kate Bender opted for a different tactic.
Speaker 2: She offered to utilize her purported psychic abilities to help
Speaker 2: Colonel Yorke locate his missing brother. In a tone tinged
Speaker 2: with eerie assurance, Kate invited him to come back to
Speaker 2: the end on the approaching Friday night, this time with
Speaker 2: a smaller contingent. He promised to guide him to the
Speaker 2: very spot where doctor York was buried. This offer from Kate,
Speaker 2: who had previously magnetized so many with her mystical claims,
Speaker 2: added a perplexing twist to an already tangled web of events.
Speaker 2: It was an audacious gamble, leaving Colonel York with a
Speaker 2: complex dilemma should he trust Kate's disturbing offer or interpret
Speaker 2: it as another layer of manipulation. As the Friday night
Speaker 2: meeting loomed closer, the tension was palpable, thickening the atmosphere
Speaker 2: with a mix of hope and foreboding. Around the same
Speaker 2: time that Kate offered to lend her psychic abilities to
Speaker 2: the hunt, tensions were escalating in the neighboring communities. The
Speaker 2: people were afraid and blame for the string of ominous
Speaker 2: disappearances began to be directed at Osage Township itself. To
Speaker 2: address this collective unrest and suspicion, a crucial public meeting
Speaker 2: was convened at the Harmony Grove Schoolhouse. There, in a
Speaker 2: room drenched in collective worry and suspicion, it was unanimously
Speaker 2: agreed upon search warrants would be secured to investigate every
Speaker 2: property lying between Big Hill Creek and Drum Creek. In
Speaker 2: an ironic twist, adding another layer of mystery to the
Speaker 2: unfolding drama, Colonel York, John Bender Senior, and John Bender
Speaker 2: Junior were all in attendance at this very meeting. They
Speaker 2: sat among their neighbors, those who trusted and those who doubted,
Speaker 2: all while the agreement was made to delve into the
Speaker 2: very places that might uncover the Bender's own dark secrets.
Speaker 2: The tension in the room was so palpable it verily
Speaker 2: nearly twanged like a discordant vi ainstring. A community's shared
Speaker 2: hope of finding answers was about to class dramatically with
Speaker 2: the hidden agenda of the Bender family. A mere few
Speaker 2: days after that faithful community meeting, a local resident made
Speaker 2: a chilling discovery. The animals, all of them on the
Speaker 2: Bender property, were either dead or emaciated, a bleaque sign
Speaker 2: of abandonment. Intrigued and concerned, Leroy Dick, an elected township officer,
Speaker 2: took it upon himself to investigate the unsettling scenario. What
Speaker 2: he encountered was enough to arouse immediate alarm. A feeded
Speaker 2: smell emanated from a trap door that had been securely
Speaker 2: nailed shut and was situated beneath a bed. Recognizing the
Speaker 2: ominous implications, Leroy Dick wasted no time in calling for
Speaker 2: a search party. The response was overwhelming. Hundreds of local residents,
Speaker 2: fueled by a combination of curiosity, concern, and perhaps a
Speaker 2: sense of impending justice, converged on the Bender property. They
Speaker 2: came armed not just with their collective will, but with
Speaker 2: the physical tools to unearth whatever dreadful secrets lay hidden.
Speaker 2: Shovels and pickaxes gripped firmly in hand. The atmosphere was
Speaker 2: thick with apprehension as the crowd prepared to delve into
Speaker 2: the very bowels of the bender in. The search party
Speaker 2: braced themselves as they pried open the seal trapped door,
Speaker 2: but nothing could have possibly prepared them for the grim
Speaker 2: tableau that lay beneath. It was a scene so gruesome,
Speaker 2: so saturated with horror, that had it been penned by
Speaker 2: the likes of Bromstoker Stephen King, it would likely have
Speaker 2: been dismissed as far too implausible, even for fiction. I'd
Speaker 2: like to say that it was so gruesome and horrible
Speaker 2: that it defied description, but that would be a lie.
Speaker 2: The very air seemed to thicken with the weight of
Speaker 2: unspoken atrocities, as if reality itself strained under the burden
Speaker 2: of such malevolent deeds. The scent of decay was so palpable,
Speaker 2: so three dimensional in the air that you could almost
Speaker 2: chew it. The search party, literally quaking in their boots,
Speaker 2: pried open the nailed shut trap door. It led to
Speaker 2: an empty room, where the sore of the hellish stench
Speaker 2: finally revealed its sinistered origin. Clotted blood had permeated the
Speaker 2: stone floor, seeping into the soil beneath as if the
Speaker 2: very ground had been violated. Yet surprisingly, no bodies were
Speaker 2: to be found there. The search expanded to Elvira and
Speaker 2: Kate's vegetable garden and to the apple orchard, and there
Speaker 2: the earth surrendered its horrifying secrets. Buried in a shallow
Speaker 2: grave was doctor Yorke, the first in a series of
Speaker 2: stomach churning discoveries. By the next day, of the garden
Speaker 2: and an adjacent well had yielded at least ten more bodies,
Speaker 2: accompanied by a grotesque assortment of dismembered body parts. All
Speaker 2: the victims had been subjected to the same savage ritual,
Speaker 2: a crushing blow to the skull, most likely by a hammer,
Speaker 2: followed by a cut across the throat. All except for
Speaker 2: young Mary Ann, tragically, almost unspeakably, her body showed no
Speaker 2: signs of such injuries. The implication was clear. The baby
Speaker 2: had had been buried alive fear God. As if to
Speaker 2: intensify the horror, many of the corpses had been indecently mutilated,
Speaker 2: suggesting acts of genital torture extending even beyond the moment
Speaker 2: of death. The discovery left an indelible mark on the community,
Speaker 2: not just a physical space, had been defiled, but the
Speaker 2: very fabric of trust and decency that holds a society
Speaker 2: together had been ripped and toren savagely apart. These crimes
Speaker 2: were not just violent, They were not just gruesome. They
Speaker 2: were a violation of basic human ethics, a grim testament
Speaker 2: to the depths of darkness that can reside in the
Speaker 2: human soul. Assuming the Benders had souls at all, The
Speaker 2: Bender dining table had one seat of honor, strategically positioned
Speaker 2: against a canvas room divider and directly above the ominous
Speaker 2: trap door that led to the blood soaked cellar below.
Speaker 2: When an unsuspecting guest took that seat, a hammer's blow
Speaker 2: would swiftly descend upon them from behind, the rendering them
Speaker 2: unconscious or worse. A second act of brutality swiftly followed,
Speaker 2: the slash across the throat, carried out with cold precision
Speaker 2: by one of the women. Once the guest's life had
Speaker 2: been distinguished, the corpse would be unceremoniously dropped through the trapdoor. Now,
Speaker 2: as some of you probably know, in many, if not
Speaker 2: most cultures, and in almost all fairy tales, guests, even
Speaker 2: guests who are your enemies, outside of your home are
Speaker 2: accorded the benefits and protections of hospitality. To mistreat or
Speaker 2: harm a guest is a violation of the most fundamental
Speaker 2: and universal moral rules of not just humanity, but even
Speaker 2: mythical creatures like fairies, elves, and trolls. It seems as
Speaker 2: though it was important to the Bender family that it
Speaker 2: was their objective to transgress as far and as extremely
Speaker 2: against all rules of behavior, against all moral codes, even
Speaker 2: those upheld by actual monsters from actual horror stories. There
Speaker 2: was no line that the Benders would not cross, and
Speaker 2: if a new line were created, they'd make sure to
Speaker 2: cross that line too. Back to the Bender's mo after
Speaker 2: the guest's skull had been crushed, their throat slit, and
Speaker 2: their body dropped through the trap door, the body would
Speaker 2: be stripped, and the Benders would make a decision either
Speaker 2: to bury the body in its entirety or to dismember it. Surprisingly,
Speaker 2: or perhaps not, valuables were often left on the victims,
Speaker 2: implying that the benders were not in this figuratively speaking
Speaker 2: for the money, but that rather their primary motivation was
Speaker 2: that they derived some perverse satisfaction or thrill from the
Speaker 2: very act of killing bullet holes riddled the walls of
Speaker 2: the Bender cabin, a haunting echo of desperate struggles of
Speaker 2: victims who had sensed their fate and tried in vain
Speaker 2: to fight back. The Bender family's chilling process wasn't just murder.
Speaker 2: It was an entire system, carefully thought out, an executed
Speaker 2: with a disturbing level of attention to detail. As I
Speaker 2: just mentioned, the crimes weren't driven by financial gain, but
Speaker 2: by an even darker impulse, a craving for the suffering
Speaker 2: of others. This revelation forces us to confront unsettling questions
Speaker 2: about human nature and what drives someone not just to kill,
Speaker 2: but to create an elaborate stage upon which the most
Speaker 2: depraved and I hate to use an adjective that could
Speaker 2: even be at all construed as positive, but creatively depraved
Speaker 2: impulses of the human mind can be made horrifyingly real.
Speaker 2: You've heard me say many times before how we often
Speaker 2: choose to define murderers and those who commit other awful
Speaker 2: acts as monsters to separate them from ourselves, but that,
Speaker 2: in fact, monstrosity is an almost uniquely human trait, and
Speaker 2: the Venders are an extreme example of that truth. Among
Speaker 2: the scant pieces of evidence to discovered in the abandoned
Speaker 2: Bender cabin were the tattered pages of a bible written
Speaker 2: in German. These pages revealed another layer of deception, naming
Speaker 2: John Junior as one John Gebhart. Coupled with this revelation,
Speaker 2: neighbors began to piece together the unsettling possibility that John
Speaker 2: Junior and Kate were not siblings at all, but rather
Speaker 2: a couple entwined in a dark partnership, and the lies
Speaker 2: didden in there. It appeared the Bender name itself was
Speaker 2: a fabrication. There's a grim likelihood that none of the
Speaker 2: four people in this horrific tale were actually Benders. By birth.
Speaker 2: Evidence points towards Alvira, the mother figure, being born as
Speaker 2: Elmira Mark in the rugged Adirondack Mountains. Her life story
Speaker 2: is tainted with whispers of multiple husbands and children, some
Speaker 2: of whom its rumored died of head injuries eerily similar
Speaker 2: to the Bender victims. As for John Senior, it's believed
Speaker 2: he was born as John Flickinger and immigrated from either
Speaker 2: Germany or the Netherlands. Kate Bender's true idea entity is
Speaker 2: thought to be Eliza Griffith, Alvira's fifth child, in unraveling,
Speaker 2: these aliases were forced to grapple with a web of
Speaker 2: lies so complex that it's difficult to discern where the
Speaker 2: deceit ends and the truth begins. But what is evident
Speaker 2: is that each member of this macabre ensemble had a
Speaker 2: pass they wished to escape, identities they wanted to shed,
Speaker 2: perhaps as easily as they shed the blood of their victims.
Speaker 2: And what's profoundly unsettling is the sheer depth of their deception,
Speaker 2: not just in names and relations, but in their cruel
Speaker 2: manipulation of social norms and trust, all to fulfill a
Speaker 2: sadistic lust for violence. You know what I'd like to note,
Speaker 2: and I don't have these answers, so forgive me. I
Speaker 2: don't believe that anyone has these answers. But if in
Speaker 2: fact they were not family other than Kate being Alvira's daughter,
Speaker 2: how did they all meet each other and how did
Speaker 2: they all reveal to each other? Or how did they
Speaker 2: all discover that each of them was a horrific serial
Speaker 2: killing monster with a lust for violence? I mean, how
Speaker 2: do you bring that up with a new friend. We're
Speaker 2: talking about four unrelated people who somehow all came together
Speaker 2: for the express purpose of repeatedly engaging in sadistic orgies
Speaker 2: of horrific violence. Wow, as Shakespeare would say, I suppose
Speaker 2: there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than
Speaker 2: are dreamt of in your philosophy. And that's true for
Speaker 2: good or ill, in this case, spectacularly ill. In the
Speaker 2: shocking aftermath of the horrors uncovered at the Bender property,
Speaker 2: influential figures wasted no time taking action. State Senator Alexander
Speaker 2: Yorke and Kansas Governor Thomas A. Osborne placed heavy bounties
Speaker 2: on the heads of the Bender family. Diligent detectives were
Speaker 2: able to follow wagon tracks, finding the family's abandoned horses
Speaker 2: near Thayer, a location just twelve miles north of the inn.
Speaker 2: The abandoned horses were concrete, real evidence, but from that
Speaker 2: juncture on discerning fact from fiction became increasingly complex. It's
Speaker 2: as if the Benders vanished into the misty pages of
Speaker 2: a Grimm's brother's dark fairy tale, leaving behind only the
Speaker 2: terror that they rot. Their disappearance shrouds them in a
Speaker 2: sort of mythological mystery, like monsters from folklore that vanish
Speaker 2: once their wicked deeds come to light. But this was
Speaker 2: no made up story. This was no Boogeyman Crampus or
Speaker 2: Freddy Krueger lessons in morality made sadistic flesh and blood
Speaker 2: to frighten and educate unruly children. No, no, no, The
Speaker 2: Benders were real, and their crimes so viscerally disturbing and
Speaker 2: horrific as to beggar the imagination of the most twisted
Speaker 2: campfire or bedtime storyteller, and their disappearance left O Sage
Speaker 2: Township and the broader Kansas Territories community grappling with the
Speaker 2: horrifying reality that evil, once unveiled, can dis pate just
Speaker 2: as quickly, leaving an everlasting impact and questions that may
Speaker 2: never find answers. The long tangled trail of the Bender
Speaker 2: family's whereabouts after their gruesome crimes has been strewn with whispers, rumors,
Speaker 2: and partial truths that baffle the imagination. While some believe
Speaker 2: that John Junior and Kate slipped away to an outlaw
Speaker 2: haven near the borderlands of Texas and New Mexico, a
Speaker 2: place where even the bravest law men feared to tread,
Speaker 2: there are others who trust the word of a detective
Speaker 2: claiming John Junior had died of apoplexy near that very border,
Speaker 2: a terminus of a life of nefarious deeds, if the
Speaker 2: detective's account holds water. On another front, stories floated around
Speaker 2: that Ma and Kate Bender had charted a course for
Speaker 2: Saint Louis, Missouri. Their ghastly legacy was so pervasive that,
Speaker 2: for years to come, any pair of women traveling in
Speaker 2: tandem were scrutinized as potential incarnations of Kate and Elvira Bender.
Speaker 2: That specter, that perpetual sense of dread in the unknow
Speaker 2: hovered over the communities they left in their wake. And
Speaker 2: let us not forget the vigilante groups, fueled by righteous indignation,
Speaker 2: who declared that they had exacted frontier justice on the
Speaker 2: Bender family, yet tellingly, not one presented the evidence required
Speaker 2: to claim the substantial cash reward offered by the state.
Speaker 2: This brings forth questions about the very fabric of human
Speaker 2: morality and justice, exposing the unnerving limits to which a
Speaker 2: society will go when law and order collapse. Efforts to
Speaker 2: bring the Benders to justice took a series of unexpected
Speaker 2: turns years after their horrifying crimes. In eighteen eighty four,
Speaker 2: an aged man was apprehended in Idaho. The particulars of
Speaker 2: his case were striking. He fit pob Bender's description and
Speaker 2: was accused of a hammer murder, early echoing the Bender's
Speaker 2: grim modus operandi. However, in a desperate bid for freedom
Speaker 2: that encapsulates the human instinct for self preservation, even among
Speaker 2: those we'd consider monstrous, perhaps especially among those as we'd
Speaker 2: consider monstrous, this man, who may have been Pobbender, tried
Speaker 2: to sever his own foot to escape custody, like a
Speaker 2: coyote chewing through its own pod to escape a hunter's
Speaker 2: steel trap. This maybe Popbender had strong animal instincts, but
Speaker 2: his gruesome escape attempt had catastrophic results, both for him
Speaker 2: and for the pursuit of justice. He bled out almost
Speaker 2: immediately and died before any positive identification could be made.
Speaker 2: The opportunity for closure so tantalizingly close, was snatched away,
Speaker 2: leaving only a cascade of what ifs and could have been.
Speaker 2: Now we fast forward to eighteen eighty nine, where another
Speaker 2: uncanny episode unfolded in Michigan. A mother daughter duo named
Speaker 2: Almira that's pretty close to Elvira and her daughter Sarah
Speaker 2: Elizabeth found themselves arrested for larceny. Soon whispers grew louder
Speaker 2: that they were, in fact the notorious Elvira and Kate Bender.
Speaker 2: They were brought to Kansas for identification. A panel convened
Speaker 2: from Labette County, but they could come to no definite conclusion.
Speaker 2: Were they the Benders? Could these possibly be the women
Speaker 2: whose acts had spilled so much innocent blood? The panel
Speaker 2: could not agree. Doubt that ever present shroud that cloud's
Speaker 2: justice led to Elmira and Sarah Elizabeth's release, and they
Speaker 2: were sent back to Michigan, their true identities still a
Speaker 2: lingering mystery. These incidents highlight the complexity and limitations of
Speaker 2: both human memory and identification, casting a shadow over our
Speaker 2: yearning for justice and closure. In the end, the Bender family,
Speaker 2: whether by fate or design, seemed to escape the firm
Speaker 2: grasp of retribution, of vengeance, of justice, of any real
Speaker 2: punishment or reckoning, leaving a community forever haunted by that
Speaker 2: absence of closure. Again, it was as if they were
Speaker 2: the magical monsters from a Grim's Face fairytale, their final
Speaker 2: chapters unsettlingly unwritten. By the way, I don't know if
Speaker 2: any of you have read the actual original Grim's fairy tales.
Speaker 2: I did as a kid. They are super gruesome and
Speaker 2: violent compared to what we know in pop culture in
Speaker 2: the US. I'll give you one example and then we'll
Speaker 2: get back to the story here. In the original snow White,
Speaker 2: the evil Queen is captured and taken to snow White
Speaker 2: and Prince Charming's wedding, where as punishment for her horrible
Speaker 2: behavior her attempts to murder snow White, a pair of
Speaker 2: copper slippers is taken with tongs shoved into white hot
Speaker 2: coals in the fireplace at the wedding reception. And then
Speaker 2: once the copper slippers are white hot, they are forced
Speaker 2: onto the evil Queen's feet and she is made to
Speaker 2: dance in them for the amusement of the assembled crowd
Speaker 2: at snow White's wedding reception. That is how the original
Speaker 2: story of snow White ends. So when I keep saying
Speaker 2: that the Benders are like characters from Grimm's fairy Tales,
Speaker 2: they are. They're like characters from the real Grimm's fairy Tales,
Speaker 2: not the sanitized Disney versions. So while the elusive Benders
Speaker 2: appeared to evade the firm grip of justice, their sinister
Speaker 2: web of criminality did not go entirely unpunished. In an
Speaker 2: ironic twist, a total of twelve men faced legal repercussions
Speaker 2: not for murder, but as accessories to the Bender's reign
Speaker 2: of terror. These men were implicated for aiding and a
Speaker 2: betting in the disposal of stolen goods, a series of
Speaker 2: crimes that, while less grim than murder, reveals how the
Speaker 2: tendency of criminal activity often entangles more than just the
Speaker 2: primary perpetrators. Among those charged was Mitt Cherry, a member
Speaker 2: of the vigilante committee tasked with upholding law and order.
Speaker 2: Cherry's own misdeeds came to light in an act of
Speaker 2: audacious betrayal. He had forged a letter to the wife
Speaker 2: of one of the victim, leading her to believe that
Speaker 2: her husband had reached his destination safely. Cherry, lying on
Speaker 2: behalf of the benders, concealing the true fate of one
Speaker 2: of their murder victims, was a revelation that further unraveled
Speaker 2: the social fabric of a community already in tatters, forcing
Speaker 2: them to question even those figures who were, at least
Speaker 2: on the surface, entrusted with the community's protection. This set
Speaker 2: of charges against members of the various vigilante groups that
Speaker 2: were supposedly in pursuit of the Benders, as well as
Speaker 2: the ensuing investigations, point to a broader, deeply unsettling reality
Speaker 2: that evil does not ever operate in a vacuum. It
Speaker 2: all too often finds willing accomplices, people who, while not
Speaker 2: directly participating in the horror, play a role in perpetuating it.
Speaker 2: This is a concept that the German American philosopher and
Speaker 2: historian Hanna Errant referred to as the banality of evil.
Speaker 2: While these men may not have wielded the hammer or
Speaker 2: slit the throats of innocent travels, their actions facilitated a
Speaker 2: climate in which such crimes could persist. It serves as
Speaker 2: a cautionary tale about the blurred lines of morality, forcing
Speaker 2: us to ponder the many shades of complicity in the
Speaker 2: face of unrestrained wickedness. The grim Taiale of the Benders
Speaker 2: evolved into a dark chapter of American folklore, drawing throngs
Speaker 2: of tourists and souvenir hunters to what was once a
Speaker 2: secluded homestead. The property, now stripped bare, bears the scars
Speaker 2: of human curiosity. Even the bricks that once made up
Speaker 2: the cellar and the stones that formed the well have
Speaker 2: been taken. It's as if the collective psyche wanted to
Speaker 2: possess fragments of this horrible story, almost as relics of
Speaker 2: human malice. Objects purported to be from the Bender estate,
Speaker 2: like hammers now displayed at the Cherryvale Museum and a
Speaker 2: blood stained knife held by the Kansas Historical Society, serve
Speaker 2: as chilling artifacts and reminders of the Bender family and
Speaker 2: the unspeakable atrocities they committed in an e tradition that
Speaker 2: lingers like a persistent shadow. Even today, traveling mothers and
Speaker 2: daughters in Kansas might still hear themselves jokingly compared to
Speaker 2: Ma and Kate Bender. The joke is both a nod
Speaker 2: to history and a testament to the undying narrative of
Speaker 2: the Benders, who have been elevated to a status akin
Speaker 2: to mythical figures, almost like ghoulish, murdering cryptids or representations
Speaker 2: of murderous femininity, such as arise in other cultures, for
Speaker 2: example Mexico's Lolrna or Japan's kuchisaki Ona. But unlike those legends,
Speaker 2: Ma and Kate Bender were very real creatures of flesh
Speaker 2: and blood and murder and the lighthearted teasing calling two
Speaker 2: women traveling together and older and a younger Ma and
Speaker 2: Kate Bender veils a somber truth that the Bender's story
Speaker 2: has been so deeply ingrained in the local and national
Speaker 2: consciousness precisely because it disturbs us. It holds up a
Speaker 2: mirror to the potential for evil that lies at the
Speaker 2: periphery of human nature, at once fascinating and repellent. The tourism,
Speaker 2: the continued fascination with the Bender property and the objects
Speaker 2: associated with it. Heck, even this podcast are a testament
Speaker 2: to our collective struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible. It's as
Speaker 2: though touching a piece of dark history brings us closer
Speaker 2: to understanding the human capacity for cruelty, and therein lies
Speaker 2: the paradox in our quest to understand evil. We grant
Speaker 2: it a form of immortality. As we've just discussed, the
Speaker 2: Bender women in particular, achieved an enduring notoriety, becoming etched
Speaker 2: in the annals of history as figures of abject horror,
Speaker 2: their deeds too grotesque to be forgotten and too mysterious
Speaker 2: to be fully understood, And of course those two qualities
Speaker 2: are what make them so fascinating as well. The tale
Speaker 2: of the Bloody Benders has seeped into the very fabric
Speaker 2: of American storytelling, inspiring countless renditions that capture both the
Speaker 2: imagination and tre Among these fictional adaptations stands the account
Speaker 2: of renowned Prairie writer Laura Ingalls Wilder. In her annotated
Speaker 2: autobiography Pioneer Girl. She speculated on the dark fate of
Speaker 2: the Bender family, insinuating that her own father, Paw Ingles,
Speaker 2: had joined a vigilante hunt to bring them to justice.
Speaker 2: While historical accuracy concerning the ingles proximity to the Benders
Speaker 2: is contested, Wilder's narrative accentuates the blend of fact and
Speaker 2: fiction that has enveloped the family's notorious exploits. It's a
Speaker 2: tale so unnerving that even stalwarts of Americana like Wilder
Speaker 2: couldn't resist delving into its dark implications, and this storytelling
Speaker 2: tradition persists today in the present, expanding its tendrils into
Speaker 2: various forms of media. The popular TV show Supernatural craft
Speaker 2: that an episode featuring a family of serial killers named
Speaker 2: the Benders, a hat tip to the haunting realities of
Speaker 2: the real life family. Video games have also paid homage
Speaker 2: in Red Dead Redemption two main care are eerily modeled
Speaker 2: after John Junior and Kate Bender. In fact, there's another
Speaker 2: example that hits even closer to home for me personally.
Speaker 2: I'm sure some of you have seen the Colt hit
Speaker 2: horror movie Cabin in the Woods starring Fran Kranz. Well,
Speaker 2: those of you who have been listening to kind of
Speaker 2: Murdery for a while now know that Fran is a
Speaker 2: close friend of mine and he's been a guest on
Speaker 2: the show several times, So if you haven't heard his episode,
Speaker 2: check them out. Anyway, Fran stars and Cabin in the
Speaker 2: Woods alongside Chris Hamsworth and Jesse Williams. And if you've
Speaker 2: seen it, and if you haven't, this isn't really a spoiler,
Speaker 2: so I'm just going to continue. But Cabin in the
Speaker 2: Woods features a family of redneck torture zombies named the Buckners, and,
Speaker 2: as fandom dot com puts it, quote, except for the
Speaker 2: undead paranormal aspect, the Buckners are almost completely identical to
Speaker 2: the historical Buddy Benders, a family of serial killers who
Speaker 2: owned an inn and a small general store in the
Speaker 2: Bette County, Kansas and murdered several between eighteen seventy one
Speaker 2: and eighteen seventy three. These artistic adaptations of the real
Speaker 2: life venders serve a dual purpose. On the one hand,
Speaker 2: they leverage the macob fascination the public has with the
Speaker 2: actual venders, commercializing it into digestible pieces of entertainment, and
Speaker 2: you could argue that that's what I'm doing right now
Speaker 2: with this podcast episode. But on a more profound level,
Speaker 2: they underline our collective need to process the chilling aspects
Speaker 2: of human nature, to frame them within the context of
Speaker 2: stories we can manage, analyze, and ultimately distance ourselves from.
Speaker 2: And yet the more we transform these dark chapters of
Speaker 2: history into folklore and fiction, the more indelible they become,
Speaker 2: like blood red inkstains on the pages of our cultural memory.
Speaker 2: I'm Zevan Odelberg, and this has been kind of murdery
Speaker 1: Seven seven
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