The Bloody Benders
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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and how. I am your Norwegian host, Thomas Vaborg Thu. And tonight, I am very happy to bring to you a serial killer story from a legendary age in history. Before the ravages of the two world wars.

and before the Belle Epoque at the cusp of the 20th century. America was a land of almost limitless potential. The entire West lay open to European settlement, and many men and women, seeking their fortune, moved into these virginal lands. Great things are happening to the Serial Killer podcast, dear listener.

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The larger my fanbase gets, the more stable this program becomes and the more resources we'll be able to devote to it in the future. Encouraging European settlement of land west of the Mississippi River was the impetus behind the Homestead Act of 1862.

which allowed any U.S. citizen over the age of 21 to move onto a parcel of land, improve it, and own it after five years. Although westward expansion was delayed by the Civil War, the Homestead Act and treaties resettling Native American tribes opened the way for rivers of settlers to stream across the Great Plains. The year is 1870.

and the great and terrible American Civil War has ended only five years earlier. The United States government recently moved the Osage Indians southwest from Labette County, Kansas, into the new Indian Territory, making new lands available for homesteading.

This newly opened section in Labette County was settled by earnest, hard-working men and women who were trying to wrest a living from the droughty, windswept plain. The constant struggle, the fierce contest with the land to obtain food and shelter dulled their interest and curiosity concerning the world at large and even their own local vicinity.

They accepted all newcomers at their face value. In 1870, five families of spiritualists settled in Labette County just north and east of what later became the township of Cherryvale. Spiritualists were unknown in the Old West at that time, and their presence caused no alarm among the hard-working settlers.

The Benders were members of that cult. After a few months of life on the prairie with its high temperatures, hot winds and hardships, two of the families moved away. But the Bender family had other plans than just farming the land. In late 1870, John Bender Sr. and his alleged son, John Jr., traveled along the Osage Trail.

Tying their horses at Earn Brockman Trading Post, they spent the night. The next morning, Earn took them to see the claims available on this treeless and windswept prairie, and by nightfall they had chosen and filed for their land. Official records show that the two settled on the western slopes of the mounds that have come to bear their infamous name.

"'Pa,' as the senior bender was called, "'chose the usual 160 acres in the northeast quarter of Section 13, Township 31, "'range 17 in the Osage Township. "'The Brockman claim was the southwest quarter of Section 13 "'and touched John Sr.'s claim at the corners. "'That made them near neighbors.'

His son chose a long, narrow piece of ground just north of his par on the southeast quarter of Section 12, in the same township and range, which would keep other settlers from being very close to them. John Jr. did not live on his claim nor make any improvement upon it. The location was in the western part of Lubbock County.

east of Montgomery and south of the Neosho County lines. The only water supply was Big Hill Creek, two miles or so away. They bought a load of rocks from neighbor Mr. Hieronymus, including a huge rock seven feet square and three inches thick. This slab was to be used for the floor of the planned cellar under their house.

They brought hay from another neighbor to thatch their shed-like barn. Lumber was brought from Fort Scott, 78 miles northeast, for a framed one-room cabin.

Hard workers, they had in short order built a sixteen by twenty-four foot shell of the cabin, a three-sided stone and sod barn with a corral from sapling poles, and dug the first of two wells. In the fall of 1871, when the house was about finished,

Word was sent to Ma Bender and Kate to come to Ottawa by train 108 miles north of their new homestead. In Ottawa, household furniture and supplies were purchased and loaded into their heavy army surplus lumber wagon for the return trip.

After they settled in, a wagon-cover canvas partition, tightly drawn over upright scantlings, was erected dividing the house into two rooms. The smaller divided area concealed the Benders' living quarters. In the rear half of the inn, Kate placed a crudely lettered sign, said groceries, above the front door. Just north of the house,

Kate and Ma planted a combined garden and fruit trees in what was to become an orchard. It was carefully cultivated, furnishing an excellent excuse for constant harrowing and digging. The Prairie Bender store was said to be only 100 yards south of the Osage Trail.

That location also made the homestead a good overnight resting spot for travelers. According to published records, the Benders operated this lonely little inn and store, surrounded by wide-open prairie land, between the winter of 1871 and spring of 1873.

The well-travelled Osage Trail came from Fort Scott through the Osage Mission via St. Paul, 12 miles west of the Bender Flats, down through the mounds to Cherryvale, 7 miles northeast, and on to Independence. Thayer was 10 miles north of the inn. This trail was sometimes referred to as the Osage Mission-Fort Scott Road.

It was the only road open for travel at that time. Many wary cross-country travelers would buy provisions and or stop for a meal. Sometimes they would bed down for a safe overnight stay. Feed was also provided for the travelers' horses. During this period, lone travelers mostly from the east were traced as far as Big Hill Country

and then just disappeared, along with their horses, wagons, and personal property. Many of these men, as they were going with the intention of settling, of buying machinery, cattle, and horses, frequently carried large sums of money upon their persons. Other would-be settlers traded horses as part payment for their claims,

As most of the travelers were going to a new and faraway country or county to settle, it was an easy matter to cover their disappearance. Mail at that time were uncertain and infrequent. As time passed, reports of lost persons became more frequent.

In the late spring of 1873, much bitterness was directed to the southeast Kansas area. The Osage Township called a meeting to see what should be done. About 75 people from surrounding areas came to the meeting at the Harmony Grove Schoolhouse in District No. 30.

Indignation was running high because of the slanderous insinuations that had been circulated by the neighboring communities against this township due to the supposed disappearance of travelers in that area. Tension at the meeting reached a breaking point when a widely known independence physician named Dr. William H. York said,

was reported to have disappeared on the Osage Trail in their area while returning from a trip to Fort Scott. A decision was made to search, under the sanction of a search warrant, every farmstead in the area between the headwaters of Big Hill Creek and Drum Creek. Old Man Bender and Young John were at this very meeting.

Three days after the meeting, neighbor Billy Toll was driving his cows past the Bender Inn when he noticed the starving condition of the farm animals roaming about the premises and discovered a starved calf in the pen. Upon further investigation, he found the inn was abandoned. He reported the news, which quickly spread. Several days elapsed because of foul weather.

before a search party directed by Leroy Dick. The elected township officer was fully organized, with men coming from Montgomery and Labette counties. They descended onto the Bender property and found the place was deserted, and the Bender's food, clothing and possessions greatly disturbed or removed entirely.

When entering the cabin, Mr. Dick was met by a sickening stench. A trapdoor, nailed shut, was discovered in the floor of the cabin. It was pried open and lifted by its leather hinges. There it was learned that it covered a hole or a cellar that was filled with clotted blood, which produced a horrid odor.

In desperation, the cabin was completely lifted and moved aside. A search was made under the house, but nothing aside from the blood was found. The search was about to be called off when Dr. William York's brother, Colonel Ed York, seating in his buggy, saw against the setting sun the outline of a strange depression.

Silently, digging began, and Dr. York's body was found buried, head downward, his feet scarcely covered. His skull had been bludgeoned from behind with a hammer, and his throat had been cut.

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Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. Speculation was that the benders would seat their guests in the front of the house with their backs to the canvas partition, making it easy to take a hammer to their skulls and a knife to their throats.

They would then drag the body through the trapdoor to the cellar until it could be buried in the orchard. All of the victims were stripped to their underwear, not to mention of their cash, horses, and any other valuables they happened to possess. I think, dear listener, it is proper to detail the true extent of such a method of murder.

First of all, when a person is struck hard upon the head with a hammer, only occasionally does this induce immediate unconsciousness. Often it simply stuns the victim, causing extreme pain, and the victim also often is deafened by a loud whistle sound in their head. It is also known that several of the victims fought back,

witnessed by the discovery of bullet holes in the walls and roof of the Bender Inn. This means that while the person sitting at a table in front of the canvas partition, having just been struck hard in the head by a metal hammer, one or both of the women rushed forward with knives in their hands. Then one or both struck a knife into the throat of the victim.

causing fresh new pangs of extreme pain to jolt the victim back into full consciousness. The knife was then sliced through muscle and sinew tissue, ripping major arteries and sometimes cutting the esophagus as well. This would induce shock, while the body desperately would try to hold close the gaping wound now emptying the body of its life force.

While still feebly kicking and gurgling out moans, the benders then forced the victim down through the trapdoor right under the table where the victim had just sat. In the cellar, the victim was left on the stone floor to bleed out and die. After that, the benders descended upon the body and looted it of all valuables.

When the body was stripped to the underwear, the benders waited until dusk before dragging the body out to their orchard to bury it. The next day, with spades, shovels and plows, the search party revealed nine other bodies with smashed skulls and slit throats, along with dismembered parts of other bodies. One man and his little daughter were found buried together in one grave.

It was determined that the child had apparently been buried alive, for no marks of violence were found on her body. One of the men that day christened the orchard Hell's Half Acre.

Another of Dr. York's brothers, Alexander M. York, a lawyer and state senator residing in independence, offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the Gastly family's arrest. On the 15th of May, 1873, the Wilson County Free Press printed a story beginning,

The Cherryvale Tragedy, the most diabolical on record. Over 3,000 persons visited the scene of horrors on Sunday. All kinds of rumors afloat. Only two days later, on the 17th of May, Governor Thomas Osborne put up a $2,000 reward for the apprehension of all four. No one ever stepped forward to collect the reward offered.

The discovery caused an absolute sensation. Newsmen and news artists flocked into this wide-open prairie, now called Hell's Acre, from as far away as New York and Chicago. Thus, Pa, Ma, John Jr. and Kate

became notorieties in 1873 when the family quickly left Labette County after their murderous spree at the family's so-called Prairie Slaughterhouse for travelers. When the Benders fled, they left a legendary trail of rumors, half-truth stories, and eyewitness accounts about their demise. A number of Parsis claimed to have found the family and killed them,

One posse of citizens stated they caught benders while escaping to the south, lynched them, and then threw their disembodied bodies into the Verdigris River. The Verdigris River has never revealed this amazing fact, and it is also quite telling that this posse never claimed any bounty for their supposed deeds.

Another vengeful Parsi claims they killed the benders during a gunfight chase and unceremoniously buried them on the prairie. Still another claimed they killed the benders while they were camping overnight, burned their bodies and took their wagon and team to Thayer, thirteen miles north, as a diversion. This way nobody would know who they were.

Countless and fruitless trips were made by law enforcement officers to many towns to look at persons identified as the benders. There seems to be no facts in these stories. Detectives did discover the benders' abandoned lumber wagon and tied-up starving team of horses. One of the mares lay just outside the city limits of Thayer.

Those detectives who attempted to follow the benders became satisfied with the following facts. The passenger train conductor, Captain James B. Ransom on the Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston Railroad, verified the descriptions of the family and stated they had brought tickets for the northbound train to Humboldt.

At Chanute, John Jr. and Kate detrained and took the MK&T train south to the Red River Country of Texas, which was then the terminus of the railroad. From there, the young benders traveled to an outlaw colony considered to be either in Texas or New Mexico. Everyone considered this area to be the toughest, most lawless region in the United States.

Many lawmen pursuing outlaws into this region never returned. Ma and Pa Bender did not detrain at Humboldt, but continued north, Kansas City. It is believed they purchased tickets for St. Louis. Many tales could possibly be dismissed as self-serving speculation and sensationalism.

Still, their flight would become the grist for detective stories and rumors well into the 20th century. Their story remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the Old West. Further investigations revealed that the only relationship between the four was Ma and Kate, who were actually mother and daughter.

Ma chose to go with the name of her first husband and father of her 12 children, George Griffith. John Sr., or Pa's real last name, was Flickinger, and young John's last name was Gebhardt. In 1884, it was reported that John Flickinger had committed suicide in Lake Michigan.

Also in 1884, an elderly man, matching Parbender's 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 a 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. Three of the Bender hammers, remaining artifacts from the bloody Bender Inn, were gifted to the Cherryvale Museum by the Dick family in 1967. They are displayed in the museum along with a certified notary by Cornelius P. Dick, son of Leroy Dick.

And so ends one of America's original Old West true crime legends. Today, very little remain of the crime scene. The spot is about a two-hour drive southeast of Wichita, along US 400 in Labette County, Kansas. It's now a field being farmed by a 71-year-old man called Larry March, and according to him,

No one lived there since the deadly Bender Inn was torn down back in the 1870s. I know ads are something my listeners are not huge fans of, but even your humble host has bills and audio engineers to pay, and as such, I need to have sponsors. But the show does not need to be flooded with ads. We can keep the ads to a minimum.

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I have been your host, Thomas Weiburg-Thu. Doing this podcast is a labor of love.

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