The Bloody Benders | America's First Family of Serial Killers
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Jones was exhausted and glad to find the inn, even if it wasn't much to look at. He tied his horse to a hitching post outside of the squat, single-story building. In Jones's opinion, the grimy property wasn't much more than a tossed-up cabin, but the sign out front promised dinner or a bed or both at an affordable rate.

The inn became immediately more appealing when Jones saw a young woman, perhaps 20 or so years old, emerge from the house. She was uncommonly pretty and slender with auburn hair and sharp eyes. The woman waved as Jones approached the door and invited him inside. The interior of the cabin was even less appealing than the exterior, cramped and cluttered. The inn also had an unusual smell that Jones couldn't place.

It reminded him of his time in the war though. Jones quickly got over his apprehension when the woman, who introduced herself as Kate Bender, asked him to sit with her at the big wooden table in the middle of this single room structure. A large canvas curtain splitting the space roughly in half provided the only privacy. Jones assumed the inn's beds were on the other side of the canvas. Jones and Kate were not alone in the cabin. An older woman was peeling vegetables in the corner.

She was the absolute opposite of Kate, where the young woman was beautiful and charming and happy to speak. The elderly one was grizzled, cold, and barely grunted in response to Jones' questions. He was amazed when Kate introduced the crone as her mother, Elvira Bender. Jones had never seen two family members less alike, but he decided to pay the old woman no mind and to focus on Kate.

She was whirling around the small room, putting together a quick lunch for her guest. As she worked, Kate told Jones that she was a psychic and a spiritualist and could easily read his fortune. This was not a common thing in 1871, especially in the half wilderness of Labette County, Kansas. Kate sat and amused Jones down at the head of the rough table in a spot she called the Place of Honor.

He settled down, enjoying the smell of baking bread and the feeling of Kate tracing one small finger over his calloused palm so she could read his fortune. There was rustling from the other side of the canvas curtain. Jones was only just beginning to turn his head towards the noise when a hammer crashed into the back of his skull. The man was thrown from his seat, rolling over on the dusty floor.

His vision was a tunnel, black at the edges. Still, Jones saw Kate approaching clearly enough, still smiling, now holding a long knife. The last sensation he felt was the blade dragging across his neck. Jones's body was found in May 1871, near the Drum Creek mining claim in Labette County, with his skull cracked and throat slit.

He was the first known victim of the Bender family, also known as the Bloody Benders, America's first family of serial killers. Part 1: The Disappearance of the Doctor There was a push west in the years after the Civil War. Men, women, and entire families drifted westward. Some went for gold, others for the climate and space, and some just to get away to a new, wild place.

George Longcore and his baby daughter, Mary Ann, felt a pull in the opposite direction. George decided to move from Kansas to Iowa in the winter of 1872. Somewhere along the route, they disappeared. This happened quite a bit in those chaotic years, and many families would have simply been forgotten.

The Longcores, however, had a caring and curious neighbor named Dr. William Henry York. After George and Mary Ann vanished, Dr. York set out to find their trail. He got as far as Fort Scott, Kansas. Then he also disappeared. There was a large, only partially settled stretch of land between Fort Scott and Independence, Kansas in the 1870s.

This area was populated by settlers and bandits, Native Americans, and every flavor of drifter. This is where the Bender family made their home. In addition to Kate and Elvira Bender, the group included John the Senior and John the Junior. The older John was much like his wife Elvira, worn down, harsh in both appearance and speech. He spoke very little English, at least when visitors were around.

and relied on German, Dutch, or Norwegian. John Jr., on the other hand, was handsome and so jovial, many wondered if he was mad or at least a little slow. The young man had a habit of breaking out into laughter at unusual times. John Jr. and Kate were both attractive and energetic. The Benders managed a good business at their tiny inn, which also served as a general store.

People came from the surrounding territory to listen to Junior's jokes or to take part in one of Kate's seances or fortune-telling sessions. Many guests were surprised to find that John Jr. and Kate were siblings instead of husband and wife, considering their affection for each other. Some accounts of the era claim that John and Kate actually were married and only pretending to be brother and sister to leave Kate all the more appealing for male victims.

Rumors persisted that Junior and Kate were both siblings and married by common law. Disappearances in the territory were common and usually blamed on either attacks by natives or simply harsh conditions for travelers. But when Dr. York went missing, his two brothers Ed and Colonel Alexander York believed that something sinister was happening in Lumet County.

The Colonel, in particular, was certain that his brother ran into foul characters somewhere between Independence and Fort Scott. He gathered a company of more than 50 volunteers and began visiting every homestead and mining claim in the region. The group questioned every traveler they encountered on the road, and many directed them toward the town of Osage, directly on the Bender's doorstep. Colonel York visited the Benders in March of that year.

he immediately noticed strangeness at their inn. There were a number of bullet holes in the wooden walls and a pervading musty smell. John Jr. and Kate hosted York and several of his men while the elder benders kept to themselves. Claiming not to understand much English, Kate used her psychic powers to assist the Colonel with ideas for his search.

directing the party to seek out local Native American tribes. She admitted that his brother had visited the inn some weeks ago, but only stayed for dinner and headed out. The company continued its search and soon encountered evidence that the Benders were hiding something. They found a woman on the road who had stayed with the family recently. She claimed that Elvira had threatened her with a knife, prompting York to return to the inn. When questioned, Junior and Kate denied the woman's story.

Elvira, however, became angry at the accusations, called her accuser a witch, and ordered the Colonel out of her house. York obeyed, but noted to his men that Elvira apparently understood English far better than she initially let on. Part Two: The Horrors Hidden and Buried at the Benders. Johnny Boyle was only out for a short trip when he decided to stop at the Benders Inn. He'd traveled from Howard County to Labette

and still had some miles to go to complete his business. It was December in Kansas and freezing cold. The day broke clear, but turned cloudy towards late morning. By the time Johnny was passing the Bender's homestead, the wind was whipping snow and sleet across the flat land. A warm drink by a hot fire seemed like the best way to wait out the storm. So Johnny hitched his horse and knocked on the cabin door.

As with Jones, Johnny Boyle was seated at the head of the table, nearest the canvas, and given a free fortune telling from Kate. Unlike Jones, Johnny was paying closer attention. He heard muffled sounds from behind the curtain. He asked Kate and Elvira if there were any men around the house, and Johnny became suspicious when told they were out in the forest collecting firewood given the vicious weather.

When John Sr. stepped from the curtain and swung a heavy mallet, Johnny ducked. The hammer still connected, but it was only a glancing blow. Johnny stumbled into the table, drawing his revolver at the same time. The room was spinning and his first shot went wild right into the ceiling. He cocked and fired again in the same motion, but the blow made it difficult for him to aim. The next shot hit just above the doorframe. Now John Jr. was coming from behind the canvas with another hammer.

Johnny Boyle tried to back away to give himself time and room to fire on both Bender men. Before he could cock and fire a third time, Kate stepped behind the traveler and slid a razor across his jugular. Johnny's corpse would eventually be found badly decomposed at the bottom of the Bender's well. After Colonel York's second visit to the Bender's Inn,

A number of men in his company were convinced that the family, potentially with help from neighboring homesteads, were responsible for the disappearance of York's brother and likely other travelers. The group was ready to drag the benders out into the wild to hang them off, something known as frontier justice. The Colonel, however, was unwilling to start killing without absolute evidence of guilt.

Concerned by the string of vanished travelers, the Osage Trail community called a town hall while York and his men were in the area. The colonel attended the meeting, as did both John Bender Sr. and Jr. Nearly 100 settlers from the region met in a small local schoolhouse to discuss the missing men, women, and children. Ultimately, the community agreed to allow officials to search every homestead in the area.

Several days after the meeting, a local rancher passing the Bender's property noticed that the inn was abandoned with their animals roaming the yard and the front door left wide open. The rancher went back to town and returned to the cabin with York, several of his men, and local authorities. They began a comprehensive search and immediately found evidence of the family's foul deeds.

The musty odor that visitors often noticed was found to be coming from a hidden trapdoor that led to a small cellar. While no bodies were found in the room, the floor and walls were covered in old blood. Black flies descended upon the cellar as the men continued to search through the inn for signs of the vanished. They found the first body buried in the apple orchard behind the cabin. The man was put in the dirt headfirst, his feet only a few inches under the soil.

His corpse was too decomposed for identification. For the next week, packs of men roamed the 160 acres of the Bender property, probing the ground with sticks and searching for any disturbed dirt. More than a dozen bodies were found. The majority buried in the orchard

In addition to full corpses, a number of limbs were discovered without apparent owners. All told, 20 plus victims have been attributed to the Bloody Benders, with other graves located near the inn, particularly by Drum Creek. Almost every corpse bore identical wounds, a crushed skull and a slit throat.

The victims were robbed, with a small number of stolen goods recovered inside the cabin. However, not every traveler was carrying much worth stealing, leading Colonel York and investigators to conclude that the Bender family killed their guests not for money or to hide anything. They just did it because they enjoyed it. Part three, the fate of the family.

While officials were scouring the Bender's property uncovering corpses, the Benders themselves were on the run. With every new body discovered, the men searching the property grew more enraged. Unable to get their hands on the killers, anybody related to them by blood or friendship became a target. A dozen men were arrested and questioned. One man named Brockman, who was on the property while graves were being uncovered,

was identified as a friend of the Benders and dragged by a mob to the barn where he was hanged from a rafter. This was done slowly so Brockman's neck would not break. When he passed out choking, he was lowered, allowed to recover, and then strung up again. Brockman was questioned as he was hanged that second and then a third time. The questioners didn't expect answers, but only for the man to suffer.

Brockman was released after his third trip up to the rafters and was chased home, barely coherent. Groups of armed men set out across Kansas hunting the Benders. The family wagon was discovered 12 miles north of their inn, just outside Thayer city limits. The horses were still attached, but there was no sign of any of the killers. A total of $3,000 was offered in reward for the Benders, worth about $70,000 in today's money.

The money and the sensational story behind the killings drew lawmen, bounty hunters, private investigators, and fortune hunters from all across the Midwest. Stories began to circulate of gunslingers claiming to have encountered and shot down the Benders in the prairie or on the trails. A popular account involved a group executing the family by gunfire, all except for Kate. They burned her alive, according to the story.

Despite all of the claims, no bodies were ever produced, and the $3,000 reward was never collected. There were other rumors that involved the Benders escaping justice. One tale goes that the group split up once they were out of the county with John Sr. and Elvira heading to St. Louis, Missouri, and the younger Benders heading down south for lawless lands and the border. The siblings or the couple, or whatever mix they might be, could have hidden in outlaw country for years.

In those days, there were many territories where the law could not reach, at least not without an armed battalion of US Calvary as an escort. However, another rumor had the Bender splitting up father with son, mother with daughter. In that version, John Jr. likely died of apoplexy not long after being run out of town.

John Sr., living under the alias of John Flickinger, possibly committed suicide in 1884 near Lake Michigan. That same year, though, a man meeting the older Bender's description was arrested in Montana after bashing in another man's skull with a hammer. Because of the similarity in appearance as well as method of murder, this convict seemed a likely candidate to be the long-hunted John Sr.

Officials familiar with the Benders were sent from LaBette to Montana to provide potential identification, but the suspect died during an escape attempt weeks before the deputies were set to arrive. He cut his own foot off to get out of his shackles, bled to death, and was too badly decomposed when officials finally reached Montana to say either way whether he was Bender.

The women of the Bender family either died or disappeared until 1889, when a duo with similar appearances were charged and identified by witnesses as Elvira and Kate. The two were arrested on Halloween 1889, after a family member of one of the Benders' victims pointed them out to authorities. The older woman went by Elmira Monroe, the younger, Sarah Eliza Davis.

Both denied being a bloody bender, though they each admitted to a list of other crimes such as larceny. The women turned on each other, offering contradictory testimony. Likewise, a conflicting swirl of affidavits, alibis, and eyewitness accounts further muddied the waters. Ultimately, the judge presiding over the affair found there wasn't enough evidence to be certain Monroe and Davis were the missing benders, so he discharged both suspects.

Official records of the trial are lost, and intense disagreements remain on the fate of all four Bloody Benders, America's first family of serial killers.