THE BLOODY BENDERS: AMERICA'S

FIRST FAMILY OF SERIAL KILLERS

The family of killers behind an infamous legend.

A U G U S T 19 , 2 019 B Y N I L E C A P P E L L O

When it comes to true crime, Mark Twain

was right: Truth is stranger than fiction. But
it’s also more dangerous, and real-life
horror stories don’t only spread fear—they
can also spread rumors, often making it
difficult to discern fact from fabrication.

Take Lizzie Borden, who killed her parents

with around 10 whacks each, instead of the
40 depicted in the morbid children’s rhyme.
The real Amityville Horror was Robert
DeFeo Jr., who killed his father, mother, two
brothers, and two sisters in the house that
would later become the focus of paranormal
speculation. And while it’s unconfirmed
whether the inspiration for Texas Chainsaw
Massacre’s Leatherface, serial killer Ed Gein,
actually committed cannibalism, the items
found in his house of horrors went far
beyond the infamous mask of human skin.

In April, 1873 on a homestead in Labette

County, Kansas, another of these stories
was unfolding—one that would leave a local
family with a nickname that remains
infamous almost 150 years later. This is the
story of the Bloody Benders, America’s first
family of serial killers.

***
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The Benders’ story begins, like many from

this time period, thanks to the Homestead
Act of 1862. After the Civil War the Osage
Indians were moved from their home in
Labette County to Oklahoma, in order to
make the Kansas Territory available to
European settlers. In October 1870, five
families moved to this area of Osage,
settling around seven miles from where the
city of Cherryvale would be established.
One of these families was the Benders, who
moved onto a 160-acre property facing the
Osage Trail.

The men, John Bender, Sr. and Jr., were first

to arrive. Thought to be German
immigrants, the elder Bender was around
the age of 60 and spoke little English and
with a thick accent, while the younger
Bender was around 25, spoke English well
but with an accent, and had a habit of
laughing aimlessly that led some to label
him a “half-wit.” After the men had
prepared the land with a cabin and barn, the
women arrived in 1871. Elvira Bender, who
went by Ma, was around the age of 55, spoke
little English, and was so unfriendly that
neighbors dubbed her “she-devil.”

The star of the family was unarguably Kate,

an attractive 23-year-old who spoke English
fluently and worked a self-proclaimed
healer and psychic who held seances,
claimed to cure illnesses, and gave lectures
on spiritualism. Though occultism wasn’t
necessarily unusual at the time, Kate’s
advocacy of free love earned her particular
notoriety, and drew fans to the Bender
property. There, the family had used canvas
to split the one-room cabin into two parts—
the back was kept as the living quarters,
while the front was converted into a general
store, kitchen, and dining table where
travelers could stop for dry goods, a meal,
or even a night of rest. But Bender Inn
wasn’t the safe haven it pretended to be,
and would soon become the focus of an
inquisition into a series of mysterious
disappearances and deaths in the region.

BENDER
The bloodshed
started in May 1871,
INN when a man was
WASN’T found in Drum Creek,
THE Southeast of the
SAFE Bender property in
HAVEN what would become
IT Montgomery County,

PRETEN with his skull crushed

and his throat
DED TO slashed. In February
BE, AND 1872, two more men
WOULD were found with the
SOON same unique injuries.
BECOME By the fall of that
THE year, travelers had
FOCUS started to disappear

OF AN off the Osage Trail;

reports of the
INQUISIT murdered and
ION INTO missing soon spread
A SERIES through the region,
OF and travelers began
MYSTERI avoiding the route.
OUS Meanwhile, Vigilante
DISAPPE groups tried—with

ARANCE little success—to

 S AND hold someone

DEATHS accountable, often

IN THE arresting and then

releasing innocent
REGION. men.

But it was the

disappearance of George Newton Longcor
(also reported as “Loncher”) that set in
motion the series of events that would
eventually expose the truth about these
mysterious disappearances and deaths.
After the death of his wife, Longcor and his
18-month-old daughter Mary Ann had left
Independence, Kansas for Iowa, but never
made it. Soon, Dr. William Henry York—
Longcor’s former neighbor, who’d sold
Longcor horses and a wagon for the trip—
was alerted that the team had been found
abandoned near Fort Scott, Kansas.

As such, Dr. William Henry York set out

looking for Longcor and Mary Ann in spring
of 1873. He questioned homesteaders along
the trail as he made his way to Fort Scott,
where he identified the wagon and horses as
those he’d sold to Longcor and clothes
found as belonging to the father and
daughter. But on his way back to
Independence, Dr. York made a fatal
decision, stopping at the Bender Inn. Dr.
York never returned.

What the Benders didn’t realize was that

their latest victim came from a prominent
family — Dr. York’s two brothers were
Colonel Ed York and Alexander M. York, a
member of the Kansas State Senate. Colonel
York quickly organized a search party of 75
men who searched the area for Dr. York, and
in March 1873 tracked him to the Bender
Inn. In this initial meeting, the Benders
denied any knowledge of Dr. York and
suggested that the traveler may have met
with foul play at a remote location near
Drum Creek, where John, Jr. claimed to
have been shot at around the same time as
Dr. York disappeared. Without any proof
they were involved in his brother’s
disappearance, Colonel York had no choice
but to leave Bender Inn.
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Yet Colonel York soon found more evidence

against the Benders, and returned on April 3
with armed men. There, Colonel York
confronted them about a woman who
claimed to have fled the Bender Inn after
Elvira threatened her with knives and
pistols. Though Elvira initially pretended
not to understand English, she began yelling
about how the woman had cursed her coffee
when Colonel York repeated the accusation;
Elvira then kicked the men out. But it was
too late—Elvira had already revealed both
her mastery of the English language, as well
as her true nature.

Hoping to diffuse the situation, Kate offered

to use her psychic abilities to assist Col.
York in his search for his brother—she told
him that if he returned that Friday night
with fewer men, she would show him to Dr.
York’s grave.

Around the same time, neighboring

communities began to accuse Osage of
being responsible for the disappearances.
To address the issue, the local township
held a public meeting in the Harmony Grove
schoolhouse, in which the community
agreed to obtain search warrants for every
property between Big Hill Creek and Drum
Creek; Colonel York, John Bender, Sr., John
Bender, Jr. were all in attendance.

A few days later, a local noticed that animals

on the Bender property were dead or
starving. Upon investigating, elected
township officer Leroy Dick found that the
property had been abandoned and that there
was a bad odor coming from a trap door
nailed shut and underneath a bed; his
subsequent call for a search party turned up
hundreds of locals wielding shovels and
pickaxes, ready to search the Bender Inn.

What they found was a scene of such gore

that, should Stephen King himself have
written it as fiction, critics may have called
it far-fetched.
 WHAT Underneath the trap
door was an empty
THEY room, where they
FOUND found the smell
WAS A coming from clotted
SCENE blood had soaked
OF SUCH through the stone
GORE floor into the soil

THAT, below. Not finding

any bodies, the search
SHOULD made its way to Elvira
STEPHE and Kate’s vegetable
N KING garden and apple
HIMSELF orchard, where they
HAVE would find Dr. York
WRITTE buried in a shallow
N IT AS grave. By the next

FICTION, day, at least ten

bodies had been
CRITICS recovered from the
MAY garden and well,
HAVE along with additional
CALLED dismembered body
IT FAR- parts. The same
FETCHE modus operandi—the

D. victims were hit in

the head, likely with a
hammer, before
having their throat slit—was evident on all
bodies except that of Mary Ann, who was
likely buried alive. Many of the bodies had
also been “indecently mutilated,” possibly
suggesting genital trauma.
Based on the evidence and stories told by
survivors of the Bender Inn, it is believed
that guests were given the seat of honor at
the dining table, which backed up against
the canvas room divider and was positioned
over the trap door to the cellar. Once their
victim was sitting, one of the men would
knock the visitor out with a hammer from
behind; one of the women would then slit
the victim’s throat to make sure they were
dead. The body would then be dropped
through the trap door, stripped, and later
buried or dismembered. Though some
victims were wearing valuables or carrying
cash, a lack of targeting suggests the
Benders killed for the thrill, not for the
money. Around a dozen bullet holes were
also found in the cabin, likely from victims
who’d tried to fight back.

One of the few items found in the cabin was

a Bible with notes in German, which
identified John, Jr. as one John Gebhardt.
This, as well as reports from neighbors,
suggest that John, Jr. and Kate may have
actually been a couple instead of brother
and sister. In fact, it is now believed that
none of the four were actually named
Bender, and that only the mother and
daughter were related. Elvira is thought to
have been born Almira Mark in the
Adirondack Mountains, and to have had
multiple children and husbands—some say
who died of head injuries—before she took
up the Bender alias. John, Sr. was likely
born John Flickinger before immigrating
from either Germany or the Netherlands,
and Kate Bender as Elvira’s fifth child Eliza
Griffith.

In the wake of the gruesome discoveries

made on the Bender property, both State
Senator Alexander York and Kansas
Governor Thomas A. Osborn offered
substantial rewards for the apprehension of
the family. Detectives followed wagon
tracks to find the family’s horses, who’d
been abandoned outside of Thayer, just 12
miles north of the inn. From there, it’s hard
to tell what is real, and what is urban
legend.

Some say that John Jr. and Kate traveled by

railroad to an outlaw colony near the border
of Texas and New Mexico, where law
enforcement wouldn’t go. One detective
even claimed to have tracked John Jr. to the
border and found that he’d died of apoplexy.
Meanwhile, there were reports that Ma and
Pa Bender had fled towards St. Louis,
Missouri. For many years after the crimes,
two women traveling together would be
accused of being Kate and Elvira Bender.
And though several vigilante groups would
claim to have caught and killed the Benders,
none provided evidence or claimed the cash
reward.
In 1884, an elderly man who investigators
said matched the description of Pa Bender
was arrested in Idaho for a murder
committed with a hammer. While waiting
for more details from Kansas, the man tried
to escape by severing his foot; he ended up
bleeding to death, and decomposed before
an identification could be made. In 1889, a
mother Almira and daughter Sarah Elizabeth
were arrested for larceny in Michigan and
subsequently accused of being Elvira and
Kate Bender. But when they were brought to
Kansas, a panel from Labette County meant
to confirm their identity provided
inconsistent results. With significant doubt
of their identity as the Benders, the women
were released and sent back to Michigan.

But while the Benders themselves were

likely never held accountable for the
murders committed in Labette County,
others were certainly punished for their
crimes—twelve men in total were charged
as accessories for helping dispose of the
stolen goods. This included Mit Cherry, a
member of the vigilante committee who it
was later revealed forged a letter to a
victim’s wife that made it appear as if he’d
arrived safely.

As the story of the Benders spread across

the country in the years following the
murder spree, thousands of tourists and
souvenir hunters flocked to the Bender’s
former homestead, looting the property
down to the bricks lining the cellar and
stones lining the well. Hammers allegedly
from the home have been displayed at the
Cherryvale Museum, while a stained knife
thought to have been taken from the Bender
Inn now belongs to the Kansas Historical
Society. To this day in Kansas, a traveling
mother and daughter might be teased about
being Ma and Kate Bender—the women, like
the legend itself, immortal in their infamy.

Most of all, the story of the Bloody Benders

has endured because of its their ability to
inspire fictional accounts—including one by
famous prairie writer Laura Ingalls Wilder,
who claimed that Pa Ingalls had joined a
vigilante hunt and that she’d come to her
own conclusion as to what he meant when
he said the family would “never be found”
in her annotated autobiography, Pioneer Girl.
But while there is some evidence that the
Ingalls family may have encountered victim
George Longcor, the Ingalls family had
already left Kansas for Wisconsin by the
time the Benders moved to the area. Yet
she’s far from the only writer hoping to
cash in on the crimes committed by this
family; an episode of Supernatural featured
a family of serial killers named the Benders,
while two of the main characters in the
video game Red Dead Redemption are
modeled after John Jr. and Kate Bender.

While the fate of the Bender family may

never truly be known, the Bloody Benders
live on in the legend, a real-life horror story
forever ingrained into the collective
memory of the Kansas plains and beyond.

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 19th Century Bloody Benders

Don't stop at the inn - just keep driving Elvira Bender

Kansas Territory Kate Bender Laura Ingalls Wilder

Nile Cappello Pa Bender Pa Ingalls serial killer family

serial killers the original serial killer family

Nile Cappello

Nile Cappello is a Los Angeles-based writer and producer

focused on true crime. As a journalist, she has published
articles with outlets including HuffPost, VICE, LA Weekly,
High Times, POPSUGAR, Eventbrite, and Bustle.
Additionally, Nile is currently developing scripted and
unscripted projects for film and TV, including two memoir-to-
feature-film adaptations and five documentary projects she
is executive producing with Campfire, STX, 44 Blue, and
Large Eyes. She is represented by Antonio D’Intino of Circle
of Confusion. When not writing, you can find Nile binge
watching murder shows, indoor climbing, trying to control
her volume, and drinking iced tea. Talk to her about: The
Virgin Suicides, Burke Ramsey, her degree in Italian, Millie
Bobby Brown, cult leaders, The Florida Project, Sally Mann,
and her childhood efforts to lobby the president to give kids
the right to vote.

THE PAST, PRESENT,

ON LEARNING TO SHOOT A AND FUTURE OF THE

GUN "ECO-THRILLER"
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James Henry • a year ago • edited

the story of the Bloody Benders has
endured because of its their ability to
inspire fictional accounts

Might the story itself have been inspired by

fictional or real accounts? The infamous
Auberge de Peyrebeille was known
throughout Europe and there are dozens of
legends of inns which murdered their guests.
1△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Dana King • 10 months ago

This family's story is used to good advantage
in Scott Phillips's wonderful book,
COTTONWOOD.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

AJ Wood • 10 months ago

I grew up there. My grandfather was very
interested in the case and took me to the
Bender farm at least twice. The best evidence
is no, they weren't lynched. But everyone
wants a claim to fame and hard for the local
community to admit they got away. This
wouldn't have been hidden, esp with reward
money to claim, that they lynched the
notorious killers of so many people,
including a child and the brother of state
senators. There's a couple of very good books
about them, which include photos of the
orchard at the time they dug it up and
discovered several victims.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›
 △ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

roberta lee • a year ago

I read a short story in a magazine titled
"TRUE"...a men's magazine back in the mid
1970's, the story was about this Bender
family and how they got away with multiple
murders. There was not as much detail as
this article has so now I am willing to get this
book!
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

This comment was marked as spam.

roberta lee > Lisa Kadonaga

• a year ago
Really if a person pays attention to
historical crimes , there seems to be
quite a few serial killers or mass
murders running around the country
after the civil war that never got
caught
1△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Lisa Kadonaga > roberta

lee • a year ago

I agree, Roberta -- many

dispossessed people on the
move, plus the limited
communications of the time,
may have meant that loved
ones who had moved away
might find it difficult to stay in
touch once they'd gone to a
different part of the country.
So they might not be declared
missing for a long time, and
the culprits might never be
caught.

My original post got flagged

afterwards as spam, so all I'll
say about that is that it's
interesting to contrast how the
Kimbrel family in Louisiana
who ran a similar scheme
managed to keep operating for
many years (maybe even
before the Civil War) without
being prosecuted, compared
with the Benders
with the Benders.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

allanwood > Lisa

Kadonaga
• 10 months ago
"The Man From The
Train" concerns a
serial killer from about
the 1910s. One very
clear point is that small
town police forces had
less than zero ability to
investigate (or often to
even conceive of)
brutal crimes like
these.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Lisa Kadonaga >

allanwood
• 9 months ago
True. Even in the
1970s, crime
investigations were
hampered by lack of
communications and
expertise ... there was a
murder in my city (the
Adele Komorowski
case at McMaster
University) and one of
the detectives lived on
the next street from
me. Years later it
turned out that there
was a possible link to a
series of sexual
assaults in small towns
across the border in
upstate NY, but even
the police elsewhere in
the state didn't know
about the details, let
alone the OPP and
Hamilton cops ....
unfortunately there
were more murders
before he was arrested.
These days there would
be reports all over
social media and the
 24-h news channels, so

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