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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
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Hey weirdos, I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. it's still wicked morbid it's super morbid it's creepy this one's pretty morbid This one is super morbid.
I mean, I know they all are, but... But it's also just like... It's like good old-fashioned fun.
It is. It's like old-timey. It is. It's old timey.
It's Western. It's going to make you want to dress up and that like in those old newspaper, you know, and take those old-timey that's what I was trying to say where you all hold fake like rifles yes and you wear the the feather boas even though I'm sure that nobody typically wore those back then like as regular fashion.
But do it. But do it. Do you. So yeah, today we're going to be covering...
The Bloody Benders. The Bloody Benders. Bad name, I call it.
Again, this is a really fun one, guys. Of course, it's awful because people died, but it's also really fun.
Before we jump into the fun, though, we have some bidness.
Bidness. Some bidness to take care of. It's our bidness.
It is our bidness. And we're making it your business.
Because you're here. So we just wanted to quickly update you on that case we mentioned last week from Amesbury, Massachusetts.
A 13-year-old girl named Chloe Ricard was dropped off.
She's from Amesbury, Massachusetts. She was dropped off at Lawrence General Hospital already dead and just dropped off and left.
And it was this big mystery what happened.
It's still kind of a mystery what happened.
But the update on this is that a 47 year old man has been arrested.
And he has been charged with something along the lines of distributing drugs to a minor and also assault.
Oh, so I know full details have been released yet, but he also apparently had a 16 year olds in the car as well and he's charged with two counts of both of those things and these girls were in his apartment for at least the night before and the whole day.
Okay, that is very strange. So it's really scary, it's getting creepier by the moment, and hopefully...
We get more details soon, but when we do, we'll tell you as soon as we find out.
Wow. There's a lot of questions I have in my mind right now.
Right? So that's kind of a spooky, awful update.
Do you know what else is spooky and awful?
What else is spooky and awful? It's actually spooky and awesome.
Spooky and awesome. What could it be? It's our shirts on murder repair.
Your shirt's on murder apparel. Mm-hmm. So, guys, if you didn't already know...
We have paired up with Murder Apparel and they made us a shirt.
They did. And it's so fucking rad and you should go check it out on their Instagram. you really should their instagram handle is murder apparel which is m-u-r-d-e-r-a-p-p-a-r-e-l And that's on Instagram.
And if you click the little link in their bio, it will take you to their shop where you can find our shirt and other wicked cool shirts that they have.
I literally have like three of them. And if you use our code morbid, M-O-R-B-I-D.
At checkout, you can get 25% off. 25. Is it good that I never know how much percent off you get?
I believe it's 25. I think it's 25. Also, I don't know if they're still doing this, but the other day, if you use the code KILL30, you could get 30% off of everything.
They always do stuff like that too. So definitely go follow them.
They have cool incentives. Yeah. And it's worth it because they are rad to the extreme.
So go check them out. And get our shirt.
Do it. And yeah, so I think the last tiny bit of business is just that our mini-sode will be released this Saturday.
So look out for that. And we are going to be on a new recording schedule.
So now you're getting an episode your full length is probably going to be coming in the beginning of the week. from now on and your mini will be towards the end of the week so you'll get you know the week will be nice and fleshed out with morbid And we're still going to try to give you extra episodes when we are able to.
Absolutely. Because it's just like really fun to be like, here you go, guys.
Just like a quick little like, whoo. Here you go.
And we love you. I love all of you. It's true.
We do. Every single one of you. I love every last one of you.
So I think we should just jump into the Bloody Benders.
One, two, three. Let's do it. Totally on the same page.
The Bloody Benders were a family who in 1870 moved out to what is now Cherryvale?
Sounds good. Cool. Kansas. To follow the spiritualist religion.
John Bender Sr. was the father. The mother was called Ma.
Her name was Elvira. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
Literally. And then there was a son and a daughter named John, sometimes called Thomas because why the fuck not?
John Thomas. Very similar names. I sometimes call my husband Thomas.
That's weird. And then there was Kate. Just Kate.
Just Kate. Kate Bender. No one knows for sure whether or not Kate and John slash Thomas were brother or sister or if they were married. and if they were married nobody really knows which one of them is ma and pa's kid that's often Yeah, totally.
Like, are you guys brother and sister or are you husband and wife?
Are you guys married? Like, what's going on here?
Kind of seems like it could be. It's weird.
So Ma and Pa spoke mostly German is like the...
Yeah, that's what I read, too. That's what people thought, but then other people were like, was that German?
Yeah, and some said, like, Holland, you know?
So like a German-ish language. But the younger benders knew English and spoke it fluently.
So shortly after moving out to Kansas, they built a home that they used as a general store, an inn, and their house.
As we all do. Multipurpose housing. Yeah, that's smart.
Yeah. So the grocery store slash inn was in the front of the family house and then... the living quarters like for them were in the back and they used canvas curtains to separate everything.
So I'm trying to like picture in my head because I haven't seen a picture of the house before.
Of like how big it was. I saw actually I have the dimensions of it and I'll mention it at some point because it's very tiny.
Yeah, because I'm like, how is it an inn, a store, and your house?
It's literally just like a box. It's very small.
In fact, we'll post pictures. I posted one picture on the Instagram today.
They have a lot from this crime scene. Interesting.
Which is odd for the 1800s, but it's great.
And they do have a lot of pictures of the house.
And it's just this like little shack. So it's not actually an inn.
It's just somewhere where like one person could spend the night.
It's like one person will roll through and they could spend the night there and maybe get like a meal.
Okay. Yeah. So... Back to the family. Kate was the one in the family who really stuck out to people.
Oh, Kate. So like we said, there was always people like traveling, staying at the house, blah, blah, blah.
You know, travelers be traveling. And Kate was the one that they were super interested in.
She was tall and beautiful. It's believed that she had red hair.
And an outgoing personality, much like yourself.
So outgoing. So outgoing. The life of the party everywhere I go.
Like, duh. It's my hair. And the other benders didn't really talk as much as she did.
And like not only was she beautiful, she was also gifted with the ability to communicate with the other side.
Wow. Yeah. That's quite a gift. I mean, I wish sometimes that I had that, but then I'm like, do I want that?
I want it, but it feels like it would be great responsibility.
I feel like it would also be moderately burdensome.
And like a dash of terrifying. 100%. Didn't I bring up Ghost Whisperer last week?
Yes, you did. I used to think... When I was little, like, that'd be so cool.
But then I was like, well, I wouldn't want to wake up at night with, like, a ghostie in my face.
Yeah, you don't want to sixth sense it. No, I don't.
That's hard to say. I've heard ghosts in the house before, though.
Yeah. But anyways, Kate was beautiful and gifted like me.
Just kidding. Like Elena. She had red hair.
She was beautiful, gifted, and outgoing like Elena.
You know. And she was well known by the townspeople as a psychic medium.
And she even had her own spiritualistic traveling show.
Whoa. Where she would go from little town to town in Kansas doing... seances, healing people's illnesses and contacting people's dead loved ones.
Look at Kate go. But she was charging a hefty fine to do this for people.
I mean, if you're going to communicate with dead people.
Which it's like, are you communicating with them?
Or is this a scam? She is definitely not, I can guarantee you.
I feel as though you're lying, Kate. I feel slightly schemey, Kate.
Slightly schemey. Now, just to go into how this crazy bunch of weirdos got their own house way back in the 1800s.
Let me know. So in the mid to late 1800s, the U.S. government was like all of a sudden lousy with land. out in the western part of our newish country at that point.
Mm-hmm. So to help fill this land up, the Homestead Act was put into motion and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.
You might know him. No, I've never heard of him.
I know you have to be really into history to know who that is.
Yeah. Yeah. It was signed into law by him during the Civil War in 1862.
So basically this act stated that any adult citizen or intended citizen... who had never borne arms against the United States government, could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land.
That's a hefty ass acre. I'm saying. You couldn't just move on to this land and squat or just like contemplate the vastness of the universe in a big open space.
Like they wouldn't let you just do that.
You had to quote, improve upon that land given to you.
You had to do this by building a dwelling and also by farming on this land.
Like, make your lazy ass useful. Yeah, that seems fair, though.
Yeah, they're just like, be useful. Right.
We're going to give you this land. Just be useful.
Do something with it. So after five years on the land, the original filer would be entitled to the property.
And you really only had to pay like a small fee to do that.
I wish that was still a thing. The title could also be acquired after only six months if you wanted to just pay the government $1.25 per acre.
Which back then was more than what it is now, obviously.
Mm-hmm. Now, after the Civil War, Union soldiers kind of got like a special thing where they could deduct the time they had served from those requirements.
Right. So that's kind of cool. Unfortunately, this act wasn't super, it wasn't the great thing it seemed to be completely.
Because very few farmers and laborers and people of that ilk... could afford to build a farm or get the tools to farm.
They couldn't afford a seed or livestock or anything that you needed to actually make a running farm.
Yeah. Because it's not like you can just plant things and be like, welp.
Hope that works out. Guess we're farming.
It's like it's a big to do. and not a lot of people could afford that, so it's like it did kind of limit a lot of people.
Most of the land went to cattlemen, miners, lumbermen, and railroads, which is not what they were looking for.
They wanted... Right. People to do farming.
Of the 500 million acres... that were given by the general land office between 1862 and 1904, only 80 million acres actually went to homesteaders.
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So it didn't do exactly what it was supposed to do, but, you know, it wasn't awful.
It just wasn't perfect. And it was like a solid idea.
Now, like we said, one of the families who took them up on this offer was the Benders.
That's how they got their home. Okay. In 1870, John and Elvira built their small house on the Osage Trail in Labette County, Kansas, which... like Ash mentioned, is now Cherryville, Kansas, currently.
The spot is about a two-hour drive southeast of Wichita. along US 400 in Lebec County.
You know where that is, right? Yeah, exactly.
You pinpointed it, right? I did. I figured.
I Google Mapsed it in my brain. Yeah, you just dropped a pin.
Bing. So the family, like Ash said, the family decided to turn the new home into... into a general store, an inn, and also their living quarters.
They really are. And the general store sold things like liquor, tobacco, gunpowder, food to travelers, horse feed.
And then that inn was just for not a ton of people to stay at.
It was really like... one to two people at a time to just kind of rest for a little while before they moved on.
Like renting a room. Exactly. It was just like a quick little hostel stay.
The community they settled in was founded by that spiritualist group.
Like that religion was kind of a thing in that area.
So that spiritualist religion is what Kate was doing.
It's these... People believe they can speak with the spirits of the dead.
They're super into seances and mediums. They do all that stuff.
And that's why Kate Bender was super into it.
They're in the perfect spot for it. Right.
Right in the hub of that. Like I was saying before, the Bender Home store in, you know, all around everything was just one room.
That's so crazy to me. And it was actually 16 by 24 feet in size. i'm really bad at measurements to be honest with you not a lot no no how much is this room that we're in right now i have no idea cool whatever keep going Basically, there was a counter in the front, like you said, that was the selling area.
There was just one counter. That's it in the front.
And then in the back where you said the living area was, there was just a, quote, rude bed.
A rude bed. That's what I read. That's amazing.
What about it was so rude? It was super rude.
You walked into the room and it was like, don't sleep here.
It only tipped like 5%. Insulted you every morning when you woke up.
You look like shit today. It didn't get up for elderly people.
It was a rude bed. There was also a table, a stove, and three chairs back there.
So one person had to stand up for dinner.
Not even enough for the whole family. Wow.
Ma or Pa or John Thomas. Or John Thomas.
According to a really fascinating article, which I'm going to read a couple excerpts from like here and there.
Y'all see. In the weekly Kansas Chief from May 22nd, 1873...
The canvas cover was white. And this is important later.
I know it seems like a very trivial detail.
But the article was titled, quote, The Devil's Kitchen, exclamation point.
Further particulars of the butcher bender's den, exclamation point.
I just like that old-timey newspapers were like, they weren't like, here's the headline.
They were like, headline! Exclamation point!
I love that. And they got really like hyperbolic about it and great.
I wish they were still like that. I know.
I love it. Like the butcher bender's den.
The devil's kitchen. The devil. Like if I saw, I'd buy a newspaper.
That's what you, I would pick up that paper and be like, what's that about?
Yeah. Um, so like we said, this house was along the Osage Trail.
So it's important to know why this was like a great place for them to set up shop. for what they were ending up doing.
Because there was a lot of travelers, for one.
Well, the Osage Trail was a very well-traveled route back then.
It was originally a Native American trail and is now where the Midwest is in the United States. and was later called the Santa Fe Trail.
The trails were originally created with the migrations of buffalo herds. which is interesting.
And these trails were traveled initially by Osage Indians.
Now, back in the day, this trail was a dangerous place.
Because? Like, just on its own. Why? Not just because of the benders.
Spoiler alert. Travelers went missing all the time, mostly due to disease, like the Oregon Trail.
I was just going to say. Like people die in a dysentery and like, you know.
Flat tire wagon. Having to forge rivers and all that.
As one does. There was also bandits. Because remember, this is like the old west.
I love it. Native Americans. There was run-ins with Native Americans who were rightfully pissed.
They were like, why the fuck are you still here?
Yeah, lots of robbery and the like. It just wasn't a very easy place to go.
So the bender set up shop at the right place for what they wanted to do.
Exactly. Cause they knew a lot of people were going to be going down this trail and It's kind of like setting up shop in the middle of Times Square.
Makes sense. You're going to get something.
Yeah, somebody's going to roll by. So in 1873, citizens of Labette County became concerned all of a sudden because although a lot of people do go missing on that trail... there was kind of an inordinate amount of missing persons in that community.
So in the neighboring counties, we're also starting to experience a lot of losses.
And they were like, huh, where are these people going?
Like, they can't all be just dying on the trail of dysentery.
Yeah. dysentery only claims so many lives per year it does it really does and this was all Kind of a slow build over a few years of missing people.
And then a couple of cases shook people up a bit and started this whole ball rolling.
The first was the disappearance of a man named George W. Lonker, who went missing while traveling from Independence on his way to Iowa.
He was traveling with his infant daughter.
Oh. So she also went missing. Hate it. Next, a prominent name went missing in March 1873, Dr. William York. who was a well-known and well-respected physician from Independence, Kansas went missing after getting off a train in the area.
Hey, uh... because he was George Lonker's neighbor and was investigating he and his infant daughter's disappearance.
So he was that first guy's neighbor, and he was like, where did he go?
And then he went missing. He heard he was around there.
He went to go look for him. Now he's missing.
Shit. Yeah. No coincidence there. No, this is like something's going on.
Something stinky. Something peculiar. Something peculiar.
The weekly Kansas chief called Dr. York, quote, a man of family, friends, and reputation.
And that's why people suddenly were like, wait a second.
The issue for the benders later became that Dr. York was not only prominent himself. but he also has two well-known and respected brothers as well, Colonel Edward York and Kansas Senator Alexander York.
Oh shit, they messed with the wrong fam.
Yeah, they always... And you know what? Serial killers and dumbasses of the like always end up doing that one that you're like...
Like, really? You didn't think that through?
Yeah, like, that was a bad move. Well, and it's always good, because they...
Yeah, it is. But you're just like, you're dumb.
Yeah. So when Dr. York went missing, Colonel York was like, oh, hell no.
He immediately led an investigation into LaBette County upon hearing of his brother's disappearance.
He was like, no, we're not just letting this go.
No. So the Benders were one of the families questioned about this case.
When questioned... They said they had no idea anything about this.
And in the words of the weekly Kansas chief at the time, Quote, quote, Kate, she of the evil eye, denied all knowledge of the lost and the younger male villain fooled them with a well-made-up story.
He said that about that time Dr. York went missed, he, Bender, had been shot at. in a lonesome place near Drum Creek one evening, and it must have been by those that killed the doctor.
That would make a good romance novel book shot at in a lonesome place with Fabio on the cover.
And Drum Creek. I do like that. It has a nice flow.
It's very poetic. It is. It does. And you know what?
It's a very good cover-up story to be like...
I was shot at. The day that dude went missing, I got shot at down in this lonesome place.
Where no one knew. So maybe it was by the same people that clearly shot that doctor, even though we don't have his body.
That doctor may have also been in a lonesome place.
He was. and he was gone now. Well, now the townspeople became so concerned that they had a town meeting at the Harmony Grove Schoolhouse about this whole shitbang.
Both male benders were at these meetings.
They were the fucking Golden State Killers of their time.
Yes. Yep, they attended the meeting. At this meeting, the townspeople decided that they would form like a coalition and search every single home in the area. to find these missing travelers.
Apparently weather conditions or something super old-timey stopped them from immediately beginning this.
Dysentery. Like dysentery, weather. Smallpox.
Yeah, just like an oxen died or something.
Something stopped them. I believe what I read was weather that they couldn't immediately start this search.
So when Colonel York, Dr. York's brother, and the rest of the search volunteers arrived again to get more information from the benders... they immediately noticed upon walking up to this farm that the animals left on the farm were all wandering around starving, and some of them were dead.
And they were like, hmm. And they were like, clearly these animals have been neglected, which is weird.
And awful. So the wagon was also missing, and it appeared that no one had been on the farm for a while.
Three weeks to be exact. Oh, shit. You can get pretty far in three weeks.
Yeah, and what they did was they left the second that Colonel York left.
They packed up and peaced. Because they were like, they're going to come check our house and we got to get the fuck out of here.
They knew. They were like, we're caught.
Right. So they busted open the door to the house slash door slash in slash butcher bar butcher baker candlestick maker. and were knocked on their asses immediately by a super gnarly smell.
They said it was like, you could like...
Touch the air. Gross, gross, gross. Like when your dog farted earlier in my face.
A Bailey fart. So the rest of the place seemed like it looked pretty normal inside.
They said nothing was missing except for some food, clothing, some bedding.
And they were like, why the fuck does it smell so bad in here?
So when they finally tracked down the location of where the smell was emitting...
It was coming from a trap door in the floor of the cabin beneath one of the chairs seated at the table.
When they opened the trap door... They found that the cellar beneath was the source of the smell.
Oh, no. And it was because it was covered in... congealed blood ew like a thick layer on the floor of just straight up clotted congealed blood Funky ass smelling blood.
Like Elizabeth Boutry's house. Exactly. Did I say that right?
Yeah, Poutry, good job. Yes. Nailed it. Thank you.
So they were like, huh. That's sticky, literally.
That's strange, guys. I will say that is strange.
So obviously they were like, what the fuck?
And the group immediately got a ton of people together to lift up the cabin from its foundations and dig into the ground.
Oh. God. They found nothing. So the searchers went searching in the surrounding land and they started focusing in on the orchard. which was freshly plowed, but uneven.
Neighbors were saying, huh, that orchard always seemed freshly plowed.
They were always plowing that damn orchard.
Which is weird. And they were like, I know that they are farmers, but like that's a lot of plowing.
Right. That orchard does. Like it could take a day off.
Yeah, they were like, you need to chill.
So they went to town digging and the volunteers first unearthed Dr. York's body. face down in a pretty shallow grave.
The back of his head had been smashed and his throat had been slit.
Soon, they found seven more bodies that night buried in that orchard. and one more the following day with similar injuries, and it became pretty clear that the Benders were a serial-killing Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style clan of heathens. very casual even though none of that stuff had been invented yet they were all thinking that it was based on that they were all thinking that It appears that at least from everything I read, all the sources I found, at least 12 bodies were officially found in graves in the Bender's orchards.
But because of the complete lack of forensics back then, there could be as many as 21.
That's what they're considering. Like looking off of missing persons reports and stuff.
The bodies were in various states of decomp and were able to be identified mainly from clothing, jewelry and other like, you know, certain markings.
The orchards and gardens where the murder victims were found were known immediately after that as Hell's Half Acre. oh okay and it's still known that i just want to quickly read a couple of excerpts from the uh Kansas chief.
The weekly Kansas chief. I feel like this is going to be fun because these, I, first of all, I love how they speak. like in like the old like old timey yeah it's just really cool so first i'm gonna tell you a couple of the bodies that they were able to identify and how they described them so they did find dr york like we said they also found george w longcore i think longer Is that how we said it?
It's hard to say. I've seen it spelled like seven different ways.
And they also found his infant daughter.
Oh. It says Mr. Lonker was a neighbor of Dr. York's from whom he had purchased a team just before he started to Iowa last December.
Don't know what that means. He and his infant child were buried in one grave.
He... As all the other men had the back of the skull crushed in and broken and his throat cut and the body stripped of nearly all its clothing.
The child was placed at the father's feet without a bruise or mark of violence and with all its clothes on.
Oh, my God. Yes. That is so fucking horrific.
I'm really hoping that that's just like hearsay.
Not true. Speculation. It's in the newspaper.
It was reported widely. And it's true that they found that, I mean, that infant had no markings or bruises. other thing that could have happened is maybe suffocation which is still not awesome at all i'm just saying better than buried alive yeah i hate the thought of anything buried alive There was also somebody named LG Brown, who was from Cedarville, Howard County.
He had recently traded horses near Lador and was supposed to have had about $60 with him.
He was recognized by a silver ring on his finger, which was identified by his friend Johnson, with whom he had traded horses.
Oh, this is all just so pure. It is. These people are just pure.
They're like, we just traded horses once.
Yeah. I know that guy. The next one is W.F.
McRotty. lived near Cedarville. He was en route to Independence to contest a land claim.
One report says that he had a large sum of money on his person, and another judged to be more reliable that he had a small sum.
And that's it for him. Like somebody was like, he had so much.
He was rolling in cash when he went up there.
And then another one was like, he's just comfortable.
I think he just had like a couple dollars.
I don't know. Everybody chill. You know, when people say that about money, they're like, we're not rich.
We're comfortable. We're just comfortable.
Only rich people say that. It's true. Those are the only people that are comfortable.
The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.
But lately, life on the coast has taken a strange turn.
The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.
His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful clairvoyant.
Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting.
I am the Archangel Michael. The whole town has been thrown into chaos.
As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.
Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson, and journalist Leo Schick for The Mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption, and magic.
Binge all episodes of The Mystic and the Mare exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery+.
Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or the Wondery app.
The next person is Henry F. McKinney from Hamilton County, Indiana. was on the road to locate at Independence where his sister, Mrs. J. Thompson resides.
He had but little money and was on foot and had been missing since December.
Wow. Sorry, Henry. Sorry, Henry. That's my favorite name.
That is a great name. next one is peter boyle he resided in howard county his body was so mutilated as to be hardly recognizable But his poor widow identified him by his peculiar shirt, which her own hands had made for him.
Oh, God. He had started on foot for Osage sometime last December.
That hurts my soul. So those are the ones that were able to be identified.
But it also has a, I just want to read one more little snippet that was of interest to me.
Here it says, now sleep and it says with the exception of dr york and henry f mckenzie g g w lonker and daughter whose families took charge of their remains and buried them at independence the bodies of those found in the garden graves were quietly taken by silent men who knew them not yet longed for vengeance on their assassins to the base of a high mound about a mile to the southeast of the devil's kitchen. and there a second time returned to the earth to sleep until the final resurrection.
Wow, that is beautiful. Isn't that just like...
That was like the end of a fucking Harry Potter novel.
Cause you're just like, wow, what about all these people that nobody knew who they were?
And then it's like, let me tell you very poetically. what we did with them and it's like men who knew them not brought them and they're like Wow.
And then it said to sleep until the... Until the final resurrection, which I don't know what that means, but like...
Like when God comes, I'm into it. I'm into it.
I'm into the whole thing. I love it. I think it's beautiful.
So I just wanted to put that out there because I think it was really interesting.
Now, the benders buried their dead pretty far into the earth, some seven feet in.
Oh, wow. That's even more than, like, fucking professional.
You think, like, six feet under. And it's really hard.
Like, seven feet, that's a... That's a deep hole.
That's a basketball player into the earth.
That's a large man. And anthropologists, forensic anthropologists, are pretty certain that there are definitely more bodies buried there, even today.
Even deeper, actually. I bet, than seven.
And just even today that simply have just not been exhumed.
Oh, God. This is why their body count is definitely more than 12 bodies that they were able to originally dig up.
Because remember... They weren't professional crime scene investigators or forensic anthropologists.
They were just volunteers. people skilled in locating and removing human remains at that crime scene they were just stunned dudes that arrived on like horseback and lent a hand to dig up whatever their graves they could right and at one point they said they were just sticking metal rods into the ground to try to see if they hit anything right So there's for sure, there's no way they got everybody out of there.
For sure. Right? So you're probably wondering, what the hell happened in that house?
What's going on? That's exactly what I was wondering.
Let me tell you. Please do. So what would happen is when one came to stay with the Bloody Benders is that guests were urged to sit at the table for a meal.
No thanks. This table sat the victim right against the separating curtain, which like we said, was white.
Hmm. The reason it's important that it was white was this made it easy for someone standing behind that curtain to make out the victim's shape, especially their head.
Now, because light would shine through the curtain and make the shadow of the person's form...
One or more of the benders, usually the male benders, were behind that curtain and then would take a sledgehammer or a regular hammer, to beat the victim's skull in from behind the partition.
They would then drop the person through that trapdoor on the floor that was located directly under the table they had sat them at.
And now that they had been dropped down in the cellar, the female benders were there to pick the stunned and bleeding person up off the ground, whose head was now crushed.
And slit their neck for good measure. This is like very Sweeney Todd.
Very Sweeney Todd. And just very like efficient.
Super efficient. They were like a well-oiled machine.
Their body was then stripped of anything valuable.
And then they were left crumpled on the cellar floor bleeding profusely until they took them out to bury them in there.
So that's why there was all that congealed blood.
Exactly. Because that's where they would just bleed out.
According to the article I mentioned earlier, there was evidence that some of their victims actually fought back, even though they were taken completely by surprise.
They found no less than a dozen bullet holes in the sides of the home and the roof that led investigators to believe that some men or women had shot furiously to stop the torture.
Yeah. Because they were clearly like mis-aimed shots.
Like they were just shooting everywhere, which is even sadder.
Like I said, there are a lot of photographs from the scene.
Like, not obviously crime scene photos because...
Nobody no bodies were left where they were but it's kind of like rare and awesome because there's a lot of photos of the grave sites and that like there's these hills in the distance and And the hills were barren prairie basically back then, but now if you go today, they're filled with trees and all that.
Right. The hills came to be known as the Bender Mounds because some... speculated that the killers may have actually stood on those mounds as lookouts to like, to like lure in travelers.
Yeah. Which is even creepier. So all of these claims were backed up by a couple of living witnesses as well.
Oh shit. One man whose name was Mr. Wetzel. heard this whole thing, and he said there was a time where he had been at the inn.
He stopped there. He declined to sit in the designated spot near the curtain.
But he said they really wanted him to sit at that spot.
And he was like, no. Like, he just got a really weird feeling.
Why do you want me to sit there so bad? He said him saying no to this. made Ma Bender so fucking angry and abusive towards him.
And he said that he saw the male benders come from behind the cloth. while she was getting pissed and like hurling abuse at him.
Jesus. And he and whoever he was with, because he said he was with someone else, he said they immediately were like, we're fucking leaving.
Like, they left immediately. That gives me the, like, spook.
And another traveler named William Pickering told almost the same exact story.
He was like, I'm not sitting there. Yeah, he was like, I said I wasn't sitting there.
My bender got real pissed. And then I saw the other two come from behind that curtain like they were standing there.
What do you think their motive was with all this?
Well, that's what's really scary because it's kind of half robbery.
Half they just liked it. Yeah. Which, so it was calculated that the bender stole $2,600 from one of the victims.
Oh. Wow, that's a lot of money. 1,900 from another.
Why do these people have all this money?
Well, they're traveling long distance. That's a lot of money for money. back then and usually they're going to like buy land or do something else damn 37 from another person 40 cents from another $38 and a quote, good team and wagon from one man.
Wow. And from Dr. York, they only got $10, a pony and a saddle.
Well, and then it's like where, like, you would think that people would be like, where are all these animals coming from?
Well, that's the thing. But it was a farm, so they had animals anyways, so nobody was really...
Oh, shit. But because they weren't getting... I mean, they got 40 cents off of one person.
Yeah, like, come on. So it kind of appears that...
They just liked doing this, which is so much scarier that they just liked being a family of serial killers like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
So what happened to the benders? Well, the bloody benders.
Let me tell you. So like you said before, Colonel York did all this investigating to find out where his brother was and they found all the shit.
And a manhunt was launched to find the whereabouts of the Bender family...
And a $500 reward was offered by the sheriff to anyone who apprehended them.
Damn. So their wagon was found soon after this manhunt happened or like was going down only a few miles from their house.
Hmm. And but the family was never found like they weren't in the wagon.
It's that's so creepy. So some people think that maybe they were killed by townspeople who knew of all the awful crimes that they'd committed.
That wouldn't be surprising. No. No. But other people have a theory that they, like, escaped the country somehow, but no one has ever found them.
So, like... They could be alive right now.
No. I know. I'm kidding. That was a joke.
For a second I was like, no. I was like, I don't really know what to say.
I've said some dumb things, but that was a joke.
That would have taken the cake. That would have absolutely taken the cake.
I thought the sarcasm was like heavy in my voice.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just tired and I was like, whoa.
I know you look immediately. I saw your eyes and I was like, dude, I'm kidding.
No, I'm really kidding. Well, there's like a couple, like you said, like there's a couple of theories and like legends have come out of it now of where they are, what they did, like what happened afterwards.
So it was determined in some way that they might have taken a train from Thayer to Chanute.
Now, I don't know where these people... Chanute.
Chanute. In that Kate and John Jr. got off in Chanute and traveled by train south to Red River.
There is where it is said that they joined Ma and, you know...
Ma and Pa and all them. Tom. Who had apparently gone through St.
Louis. Now, detectives thought that they traced the benders through Texas and New Mexico.
Okay. That's the last kind of thing. But there was...
In 1890, two women who were thought to be fugitives were arrested in Michigan.
They were brought back to Kansas, but they were released after it was said they were not the Bender women because originally they thought they were.
But other people believe they were definitely the two Bender women.
Wow. So it's just one of these things where it's like...
It's almost like the Whitey Bulger thing, like the sightings of Whitey Bulger everywhere that were happening.
And so it's just kind of become like a legend.
Well, because I think. I bet people want so badly for like, just like they, and they want to be the person that's like, I saw her.
Like I know I did. You wanted to be before Whitey Bulger was caught and then murdered in prison.
You wanted to be like, I saw Whitey Bulger.
I know it was him. You know what I mean?
Like, it's just one of those things. No matter if you did or not.
It's like a sensation. So obviously these crimes at the time they would now and they definitely at the time created like just insanity and sensationalism and all the newspapers at the time.
And I just wanted to say a couple of like the headlines and like quotes from a couple of the newspapers back then because it's interesting.
Hit me with it. One of them said, quote, altogether, the murders are without a parallel.
That was in the Chicago Tribune. The Minneapolis Star Tribune said there were over 3,000 people at the crime scene. with more trains arriving.
And there was a book published in Philadelphia pretty soon after the murders happened, called The Bender Hotel Horror in Kansas.
And they described, quote, large numbers of people arrived upon the scene who had heard of the diabolical acts of bloody murder and rap. rapacious robbery hardened mend or move to tears rapacious robbery i know so much alliteration for real A Labette County history published in 1901, like some 28, I think it was, years after the crimes. actually had a section that was titled The Bender Slaughter Pen.
Wow. And just going back, just to point out a couple of things, If John and Kate plus eight.
Oh, my God. Yes. If John and Kate Bender.
It also just occurred to me that that was the same.
So that's good. If they were actually husband and wife and not brother and sister, like they were passing themselves off to be, It seemed strange to a lot of people.
It might seem strange that they didn't have kids because at that time you would have kids.
It's just you didn't do anything else. So according to legends, the couple did have at least one child.
But shortly after birth, Kate and John Jr. murdered the infant with a blow to the head.
But why? I just don't understand what the point of that would have been.
Because why do you want to take care of a baby when you're busy murdering people?
But then you could raise another murderer and have like extra hands on deck.
But that takes a long time. I just don't think that they were like, ain't nobody got time for that.
What's creepier than a kid murder? But I think they were such a well-oiled machine that they were like, we don't need to add... We have this down to a science.
Yeah, we don't need to add like a weird little... like cog in here that's what they thought that i know that i like that i'm arguing the point of raising a child murderer you're like i'll leave now it seems like it would be a great idea.
I'm like I'm just saying like you should just Just train that little thing to murder people.
It's fine. I'll see myself out now. Yeah, it's fine.
So that would suck if that was real. And according to the Serial Killers Encyclopedia by R.J.
Parker... Before marrying John, Elvira Bender allegedly had several other husbands... who all weirdly died of mysterious head injuries.
I'm just saying. I mean, who knows? This podcast should just be called I'm Just Saying.
I'm Just Saying and who knows? That's bananas.
So it's just like that's just a legend, just like the the two women who they thought were the Bender women. but it turned out not to be.
That's a legend too. It's like rumor has it.
You gotta put it out there. So the house that these murders took place, the Bender house, was pulled apart by people who wanted to take parts of the house as souvenir.
I feel like, were you there? Like, I totally would have been.
I would have been. I would have been, like, pulling away, like, the table.
No, no, no. I just said I would have been, but I meant to say I wouldn't have been.
You're like wait a second. I'm like I would have been not there.
I would have been anywhere else. I just feel as though. things have energy attached to them and i do not want the bad juju of the bender house in my house See, I'd be like lugging that table on my back.
I'd be like, see you later, guys. I would never stay in your house.
Or I would take that... like trap door door off the hinges and take that.
That would be a good one. I wouldn't do any of that.
That'd be a good one. I would stay away from that.
Well, some people even took rocks from a well where one corpse of a victim was discovered on the property.
No, thank you. Which I think that's pretty cool.
I'm busy that day. You can just be like, this is a rock.
Nope. I'm busy that day. A set of three hammers from their home is actually right now part of a bender exhibit at the Cherryvale Museum.
About eight miles from the site of their home.
See, I would go to the museum and like see it.
Oh, for sure. But I don't want to have it.
I mean, both. I mean, I'll respect anybody who does.
Live your best life. Take what you want.
Have your things. I just don't want them.
I mean, count me in. I'm in. There's a blood-stained knife that has been part of the state's collection for 90 years.
And the knife was actually found by Dr. York's brother.
In the house. Yeah, and his wife gave it over to the state.
The knife supposedly had been hidden in a mantel clock in the house.
Wow. That's the tale. That's the legend.
That's the legend. Now, there is right now at a rest area at the junction of US 400 and US 169 north of You can read a historical marker that tells you about the Bender's crimes. and another historical marker in the area says it best and this is what we'll end on let me know The end of the benders is not known.
The earth seemed to swallow them as it had their victims.
And that was the story. Is the bloody benders.
Yes. Those slides. Yes. Very slick. Very slick.
So yeah, hope you enjoyed that 1800s romp.
I hope you dug it. That romped through the old west in the 1800s.
Wasn't that fun? Howdy, cowboy. And cow gal.
Cow gal. Cow gal. So, yeah. So I hope you enjoyed that.
And now we're going to thank some patronuses.
Hey. I'm going to read them today and you're going to have to come up with things.
Okay. So the first one we would like to thank is Allie, is that Mike Pence?
Benedict. Guess what, Allie Benedict, it is Mike Pence.
Allie, thank you so much. Thank you, girl.
And that is not Mike Pence. Don't worry.
No, it's not. The next patronus we would like to thank is Brett Green.
Brett Green, the grass is always greener where you are.
It's true. Thank you. Thank you, Brett. The next person we want to thank is Chadwick Goleta.
Chadwick Galeta. What the fuck? You have a cool name.
That's a great name. Thank you, Chadwick Galeta.
Thank you, Chadwick. Chadwick. You had a professor, Chadwick, didn't you?
I did. And she was great. Yeah? Thanks, Chadwick.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. The next person we're going to thank is...
MJ Hart. MJ Hart. Are you like the MJ in the Kardashian family?
Oh, hate that you did that. I know I was waiting for you to stab me in the face.
MJ heart. I heart you. I don't even... MJ from the Kardashian family?
MJ's the grandma. Oh. Why do you know that?
Because I... That's awful. Are you kidding me?
She's on the show. I hate you. It's MJ.
It's MJ. Thank you, MJ. Thank you so much, MJ.
You are not affiliated with the Kardashians at all and I know this.
I know this too, I'm just saying. The next person we want to thank is Jade Catherine. jade catherine that's beautiful isn't that really pretty yeah thank you jade catherine i was writing it down and i was like Love you, girl.
That flows. I bet you're cool as fuck. She is.
I know it. I just, I know. Thank you, Jade.
Thank you. The next person we want to thank is Dion Ledesma.
Dion Ledesma, you are a Lediamond. Doesn't she sound like she is some old timey psychic from like New Orleans?
Dionne It was just like fancy. Like she was like the fantastic Ledesma.
I don't know. Oh, now that you said it like that, totally.
But then. Where I thought you were going with that originally was that she was like on an old time soap opera.
That too. Dionne Ledesma. Yeah. She's starring on an old time like Spanish soap opera.
Both of those work. Yes. Thank you Dion.
Thank you Dion. The next person we're going to thank is Mark Govani.
Mark Govani. Go Yui. Govani. Yeah. Go, Mark.
Go, Bonnie. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. The next person we're going to thank is Mystery Barton. whoa like who barton if your name is mystery literally mystery i just own i don't even know I want to high five your mom and your dad.
I just want to retire now because that's great.
That's so cool. Even if it's not, that's a great pen name.
Thank you, mystery. And the last person we're going to thank this week is...
Shannon Von Munster. Shannon Von Munster, you know how we feel about last names that have Von or Von.
It's true. I love you, Shan. And it's Von Munster, so you belong. yeah you're a monster here you are you've come to the right place you have so thank you shannon And thank you to all our Patronuses.
Guys, thank you to everybody who donates, who listens, who loves us.
You guys are the best. Peace, love, positivity.
I don't know if you guys have noticed, but thanks to your donations, we sound a little better recently.
I think we sound great. So without you guys, we couldn't have improved to this and we would still sound like we were podcasting underwater.
Yeah. So thank you. Thank you so much. And you know what, guys?
We hope that you love us enough to follow us on Instagram at Morbid Podcast.
Follow us on Twitter at a morbid podcast join the facebook group morbid colon a true crime vote whoa a true crime podcast uh send us an email morbidpodcast.gmail.com Check out the lovely co-host that Alayna designed if she knows how to say it without dying first.
And donate to the Patreon if you're feeling so inclined.
Patreon.com slash... Morbid Podcast. We hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird. But that's so weird that you join a family and of travelers and you go to their house, but it's like not just a house.
It's also like a general store in an inn and you sleep there and they're like sit in this fucking chair.
And you sit in the chair and then John Thomas Paul face bender comes around the corner and hits you in the head and then.
All of a sudden you're in a basement and now you can't get out and shit, you're dead.
And I just hope that you don't keep it that weird.
Don't keep it that weird. Bye. Bye. Thank you.
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