John & Kate & John & Kate + 18

The Family on a bender

They say the family that slays together stays together. Actually, nobody says that, but I had to fill my bad joke quota. But even if that's not an actual phrase, it was certainly true of one family in the American West during the mid-nineteenth century.


They murdered more people than the most famous serial-killing "family," the Manson family, and preceded them by nearly a century. Charles Manson's body count was only seven, eight if you count Sharon Tate's unborn child. The Bender family killed at least eighteen, AND THEY GOT AWAY WITH IT.

The Family Bender

In the early 1870s, a seemingly normal family of four moved west, like so many others, and settled in Labette County, Kansas. In fact, they settled mere miles from the most beloved pioneer family of all time. That's right, less than a day's journey from the little house on the prairie, where young Laura Ingalls lived with her Ma, Pa, big sister Mary, baby sister Carrie, and their brindle bulldog Jack.


Well, there was one odd thing about the Benders- they were spiritualists. But spiritualism was more accepted back then than Scientology is today, so it wasn't TOO bizarre. They also settled in an area near other spiritualists, so they formed a little community of crazies.


Instead of farming, the Benders decided to open a little general store and an inn they called The Wayside. Well, I use the term "inn" loosely, and their guests would likely have been better off pulling a Mary and Joseph and just sleeping in the barn.


The Bender family patriarch was named John. (I'll call him Pa Bender.) He arrived in Kansas with his son, John Jr., in October 1870. They built a one-room cabin, barn, well, and corral. The next autumn, Kate Bender (Ma Bender) joined the men, along with her daughter (also named Kate).


The women divided the small cabin in half, using a wagon canvas for a wall. The back half was used for living quarters, and the front served as the guest room and mercantile. They also planted a large garden and apple orchard.


Pa Bender was about 60 and spoke no English. He came from Germany or Holland, and had a large "Pa Ingalls" beard.


Ma Bender was about 55 and acted like she spoke no English. However, it was later discovered she spoke it fluently. She apparently was able to prove than bitchiness is a universal language. Her neighbors found her so unpleasant, they called her the she-devil. It takes talent to be such an awful person that people hate you, even though you rarely speak.


John Jr. was about 25, and very handsome with auburn hair and a mustache. And he was kind of slow. The neighbors thought he was a half-wit (their term, not mine), as he could frequently be seen laughing randomly to himself. He spoke English, but with a German accent.


Then we get to Kate. She was a blonde, about 23, and by all accounts was really hot. She was very articulate, and spoke with no accent. She was a self-proclaimed healer and psychic, and she gave frequent well-attended lectures on spiritualism. She also advocated free love. Needless to say, she was very popular.


Oh, and I guess now is the time to mention this: they weren't actually a family at all. None of them were even named Bender. They passed themselves off as German immigrants, but only the men were not American. Pa's real name was John Flickinger. Ma was born Almira Meik, somewhere in the Adirondacks. She married several times, and was widowed several times. Each husband died of tragic blunt-force trauma to the head. What rotten luck. She stayed longest with her first husband, a man named George Griffith, with whom she had twelve children.


John Jr's real name was probably John Gebhardt. Kate was Ma Bender's real daughter, and was born Eliza Griffith. She also used the name Sara Eliza Davis. And as if this story weren't convoluted enough already, it's thought that Kate and John Jr. were actually married.


In May 1871, the body of a guy named Jones was found in nearby Drum Creek, his skull caved in and throat slit. Nobody was ever arrested. In February 1872, two more bodies were found with similar injuries. The Wayside Inn was a stop on the Great Osage Trail, the only route west in the area at the time. By 1873, so many people had gone missing in the area, people started avoiding that section of the trail.


Unfortunately for the Benders, all good things must come to an end. In winter '72, a young widower named George Loncher and his 18-month-old daughter were moving west to start a new life. They stopped at the Wayside Inn and were never seen again.


The next spring, one of George's friends, Dr. William York, went looking for them. He also went missing. This was the Benders's big mistake. Previously they had killed people who wouldn't be missed. After all, someone going missing on the frontier was nothing unusual. But Dr. York was missed. He wasn't from far away, Kansas was his home. It was also the home of his two prominent brothers: Col. Ed York and State Senator Alexander York. Both men knew his travel plans, and began to search when he failed to return home. On 28 March, Col. York arrived at the Bender house with a group of 50 men. The Benders admitted that William York had stayed there, but that he had left and likely been killed by hostile Native Americans. The Colonel accepted this, and they departed. However, he returned on 03 April, after meeting a woman who had had a knife pulled on her by Ma Bender.


In a move worthy of a courtroom drama, Ed proved Ma Bender was a fluent English-speaker. He confronted her with the woman's accusations, riling her into defending herself. Her reasoning? The woman was a witch and had cursed her coffee. Kate offered to hold a seance to find the missing Dr. York, but only if the Colonel returned alone the next night.


Meanwhile, nearby communities were starting to figure out that someone in Osage was responsible for the disappearances. It was agreed that every homestead in the area would be searched, but by the time the searchers made it to the Bender farm, they were long gone.


Several hundred men turned up to search the Bender property. The cabin had been pretty much cleaned out, but they discovered a trap door beneath a bed, and a foul odor permeating everything. 


The stone floor of the the cellar was smashed up, and blood soaked the floor. The men physically lifted the cabin and pushed it aside so they could dig underneath, but no bodies were found.


The first body found was that of Dr. York, buried in a shallow grave in the apple orchard. They found nine more possible grave sites that night. From those nine potential graves, they pulled eight more bodies, including that of a very young girl. All the men had had their skulls bashed in, their throats slit, and were, *ahem* "indecently mutilated." The girl had been buried alive. Another body was found in the well, as well as various extraneous body parts that couldn't be matched to anybody.


Twelve men of ill repute were arrested as accessories, but were never proven guilty of anything but having poor taste in friends. A total $3000 ($53,000 in 2009 money) reward was offered for their capture. Their abandoned wagon was found outside a nearby town, where the family had boarded a train. Bender sightings continued for the next 50 years, but none were ever confirmed. 


Why did they do this? Other than just being crazy evil, it was a get-rich-quick scheme. When people went west, they usually took every dime they had, plus all their prized possessions. And moving west essentially required cutting all ties with family and friends back east, at least for a while. If someone went missing on the frontier, they'd likely never be found. The Benders stole at least $7400 from their victims. In today's money, that's nearly $134,000 dollars.


I don't know about you, but these people terrify me. I hope they all got mauled by a bear or something horrible like that.