11) December 1872: Red Smith. At the site of a freshly stirred depression in the earth, they found the first body, buried head downward with its feet scarcely covered. Even with her clairvoyant abilities, Kate attempted to search for the missing doctor to throw any suspicion off herself. She also claimed to possess psychic powers, including communicating with the dead. The notorious "Bloody Benders" were a German immigrant family who owned both a general store and small inn in the early 1870s in Labette County. The search of the cabin resulted in the recovery of three hammers: a shoe hammer, a claw hammer, and a sledgehammer that appeared to match indentations in some of the skulls. At a fork of the Fall and Verdigris Rivers, they found the Benders with their wagon backed up against a fallen tree with canvas over it for shelter. betty crocker net worth 2020; vietnamese culture relationships; pastillas para dormir durante el embarazo; what does modern fit mean in men's shirts? 1619) December 1872: During the search, the bodies of four unidentified males were found in Drum Creek and the surrounds. With the victim's back to the curtain, Kate would distract the guest while John Bender or his son came from behind the curtain and struck the guest on the right side of the skull with a hammer. [2], Testimony from people who had stayed at the Benders' inn and managed to escape before they could be killed appeared to support the presumed execution method of the Benders. The family quickly ran away in the middle of the night never to be seen. Hell the first album from the Smiths included a song about the Moors Murderers. [5][18] It said the plaque was erected by the Kansas City historical society. Calamita is swept up into the funnel, along with the filling station and the bodies littering its floors. The lonely hills meander across what is now U.S. Highway 400, where travelers whoosh by in comfort at 65 mph. Their story is unresolved and remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the old west. [18], According to a news report from contemporary media, an unnamed man from Kansas City, who had investigated the Bender Family's house and the rumors of their deaths numerous times, claimed that The Kelly Family were in fact the Benders. The old Bender property was haunted, and the rumors of the locals began to fly. As the boy listened, the men continued to talk, relating the tale of how the judge had lost his ear. The Bloody Benders - Serial Killers of Kansas Bender Mounds, Kansas by Kathy Alexander. Deputy Sheriff Dick, along with Mrs. McCann, escorted the pair to Oswego, Kansas, where seven members of a 13-member panel confirmed the identification and committed them for trial. If the terrible story of the Bender murders was not legend enough, another tale began to circulate regarding the property upon which the Benders had once lived. Then Kate would begin to charm the men with her social skills, flirting, or revealing her psychic gifts. As the men gave their full attention to the alluring Kate, Pa and John Bender, hiding behind the canvas, would strike the unsuspecting traveler in the skull with a hammer. In 1884, it was reported that John Flickinger had committed suicide in Lake Michigan. However, by the time the men arrived at the Benders cabin very early the next morning, they found them gone. Though the pair were jailed, the case was dropped for lack of evidence. In total, 12 men "of bad repute in general" would be arrested, including Brockman. He leaves Satchel in the car with Rabbit while hes doing this, and the boy is approached by a nervous policeman who prepares to draw his weapon as he asks Satchel to leave the car. When he wakes alone again in the morning, Satchel takes Rabbit for a walk down the lane to where a man has finished building a cryptic billboard featuring a white man in a suit and hat smiling expectantly in front of a ranch style house. The little store carried a few supplies such as powder, shot, groceries, liquor, and tobacco, sold meals, and provided a safe overnight resting place to the strangers along the road. Ma Bender and Kate would then rifle the body for money, pushing him through the trap door into the hole below the cabin, where Kate would slit his throat. Once in the cellar, the body would be stripped and later buried somewhere on the property, often in the orchard. State Senator Alexander York offered a $1,000 ($22,619 as of 2023) reward for the family's arrest. Mrs. Bender, a heavyset woman, was so unfriendly and had such sinister eyes that her neighbors began to call her a she-devil. To add to her fierce look, Ma Bender claimed to be a medium who could speak with the dead and boiled herbs and roots that she declared could be used to cast charms or wicked spells. The Bender cabin was ripped apart by gruesome souvenir hunters right down to the bloody bricks that lined the cellar. When the Benders opened their store and inn in 1871, many travelers would stop for a meal or supplies. Later she married William Stephen Griffith. One vigilante group claimed to have shot down the men and Ma Bender and burned Kate alive as the witch they believed her to be. Their story is unresolved, and remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the old West. Season 4 Episode 22 (1961) of the TV series, Season 1, episode 15 (2006) of the TV series, The "Hitchcock's Birds, Hope Diamond, Phineas Gang" episode of the Travel Channel's show, The Bender Family is mentioned in episode 94 of the podcast, The story was recounted on Investigation Discovery's, The metal pioneers Macabre have a song about the Benders, who are said to be of Norwegian ancestry -. When his father (my great grandfather), Frank Smalley, was a boy, he was hiding in the hayloft of the family barn when he overheard a group of men below talking and laughing. Kate then became abusive toward them, and shortly afterward the Bender men emerged from behind the cloth. Props to Noah Hawley for referencing a lot of forgotten crimes, from Jane Toppan, the Kansas City Massacre, and now the Bloody Benders. The episode opens with Omie Sparkman (Corey Hendrix) pulling into a filling station on a desolate road in Kansas. The legend was debunked on June 8, 1966, when an EF-5 twister churned its way across the city, cutting a diagonal swath of destruction from S.W. According to a breathless Daily Mail report, nursery-school teacher Inessa Tarverdiyeva and her husband, dentist Roman Podkopayev, were behind "a six-year reign of terror including at least 30. A Catholic priest claimed to have seen one of the Bender men concealing a large hammer, at which point he became uncomfortable and quickly departed. Rabbi has a tailor-made response for each situation, but the active reminder of reality for black Americans in 1950 definitely adds to the tension of the episode. Allegedly, the pair then fled to a tough outlaw colony along the border of Texas and New Mexico. At her hearing, Mrs. Monroe denied any knowledge of Shearer or the manslaughter charge and remained incarcerated with her daughter. On May 17, Kansas Governor Thomas A. Osborn offered a $2,000 ($45,239 as of 2023) reward for the apprehension of all four. Hes connected to a medical machine and has a hovering attendant with goggles on, ministering to him with a hypodermic needle. The desk clerk who shows them to their room warns them that the sisters dont care for colored people, a refrain echoed repeatedly through this episode. As more and more travelers vanished, suspicion began to circle the Mellons. The next day, Rabbi goes back to the appliance store and recovers his remaining cash from the brothers at gunpoint. The museum remained a popular tourist destination until it closed in 1978 when a fire station was built. As the haunting legend continued, people began to say that Kate Bender had returned to the property, doomed to roam the very land where she had committed so many atrocities. From Howard County, Kansas. 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. A place to discuss Lawrence Kansas happenings and news. While not actually on the old Bender property, the marker sits on the high prairie about a mile northwest of Bender Mounds at the US-400 and US-169 interchange at the Montgomery County Rest area, north of Cherryvale. They disappeared in the spring of 1873, shortly before inquisitive neighbors discovered the victims' bodies. 37 20.932 N, 95 31.668 W. Marker is in Morehead, Kansas, in Montgomery County. Another of Mrs. Monroe's daughters, Mary Gardei, later provided an affidavit claiming that her mother (then Almira Shearer), under the name of Almira Marks, was actually serving two years in the Detroit House of Corrections in 1872 for the manslaughter of her daughter-in-law, Emily Mark. The petite auburn-haired beauty desired notoriety and often advocated free love and justification for murder in her lectures. Often two women traveling together were accused of being Kate Bender and her mother.[10]. John and his raw-boned wife spoke with such guttural accents that few people could understand them. Kate was purportedly Elvira's fifth daughter. Rewind one day, to Rabbi and Satchel driving past the same station. No documentation or definitive proof of their relationships to one another, or where they were born, has ever been found. Some say they escaped, others that the were executed by a vengeful posse. Their downfall was the murder of a father and daughter named Loncher, and Dr. William York, who had come looking for the missing pair. [1][2][3], The area was already widely known for "horse thieves and villains, and vigilance committees often "arrested" some for the disappearances, only for them to be later released by the authorities. Mrs. Monroe resisted, declaring that she would not be taken alive, but was subdued by local deputies. Catch up here! barry mcguigan, daughter funeral; mellon mounds kansas murders The fate of the family remains unknown, with theories ranging from a lynching of the family to a successful escape. These hammers were given to the Bender Museum in 1967 by the son of LeRoy Dick, the Osage Township trustee who headed the search of the Bender property. Their room is assigned based on Rabbis political and New Testament leanings, which place them in the west wing. Subreddit for the FX original TV series, Fargo. In 1967, three of the Bender hammers were gifted to the museum by the Dick family. 18701873", Sheriff Saves the Neck of a Man Who Murdered His Own Daughter, "Dr William H. York (1840-1873) - Find a Grave", "The Bloody Benders: 140-year-old crime scene still fascinates today", "Selective Omissions, or, What Laura Ingalls Wilder left out of LITTLE HOUSE", "Little House on the Prairie, serial killers, and the nature of memoir", "They Bite: Anthony Boucher's Weirder Western", "Hitchcock's Birds, Hope Diamond, Phineas Gage", "One Red Dead Redemption 2 Side Quest Is Based On An Actual Serial Killer", 1873 map of Bender claim in Osage township of Labette County, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bloody_Benders&oldid=1142480623, "The old man was a repulsive, hideous brute, without a redeeming trait, dirty, profane and ill-tempered. In the spring of 1873, Dr. York took it upon himself to look for the Lonchers, stopping at the homesteads along the trail to ask questions. It was reported at the time that Kate was into free love, telling fortunes, and being a little too close to her brother. No one ever claimed the $3,000 reward ($67,858 as of 2023), however. In honor of the Kansas state-wide Centennial Celebration, an exact replica of the Bender cabin was built that housed antiques and household items. Also in residence on the east is a hero of Wounded Knee (as if there was such a thing) and his niece, a minor girl whos relationship to the old man is likely not familial. After a cabin, a barn with a corral, and a well were built, in the fall of 1871, Elvira Bender and daughter Kate arrived, and the cabin was divided into two rooms by a canvas wagon-cover. Many stories say that one vigilante group actually caught the Benders and shot all of them but Kate, whom they burned alive. His son chose a narrow piece of land just north of his fathers; however, he never lived on his claim nor made any improvements. When friends and family began to look for them, they could trace them as far as the Big Hill Country of southeast Kansas before finding no trace of the lost traveler. After the third hanging, they released him and he staggered home "as one who was drunken or deranged. But if your not from Kansas it's a fairly obscure story. Rabbi would not have been one of the Mellons.). I haven't heard Macabre in years. She watches (and recaps) a lot of TV, sees every Marvel movie on opening night and reads voraciously. that when a guest stayed at the Benders' bed and breakfast inn, the hosts would give the guest a seat of honor at the table that was positioned over a trap door into the cellar. Gabe Gibson, Effingham, Illinois, as told to him by his grandfather, Emerson Smalley, January 2011. It is in Morehead in Montgomery County Kansas. Both knew of William's travel plans and, when he failed to return, an all-out search began for the missing doctor. $10 (2023: $226), a, 8-9) December 1872: George Newton Longcor and his 18-month-old daughter, Mary Ann. They killed as many as 26 people, I believe there is a museum that stills has a bloody knife they used. allah y hafdek traduction; markel annual meeting 2022; community action partnership appointment line; July 3, 2022 mellon mounds kansas murdersdcs vsn modsdcs vsn mods The 162-acre tract of cropland known as the "Bender Farm" will be sold off to. "[8] A Roman Catholic prayer book was found in the house with notes inside written in German, which were later translated. Of the discovery of her remains, the Kansas City Times reported: The little girl was probably eight years of age and had long, sunny hair and some traces of beauty on a countenance that was not yet entirely disfigured by decay. Rabbi makes his way to the filling station in search of a cupcake or candy bar. [11] Whether John Flickinger was really John Bender is unknown. "The Bender Family Some New Light on Their Mysterious Disappearance". A cult-like group, the families, chose from several available claims and began to make their homes. Satchel decides to keep her, without asking anyone in the building whose she is, and Rabbis only objection to this when he meets her is that she makes noise. Kate was the fifth child of Ma Bender and was born Eliza Griffith. He then cautiously looks through a window, where he sees Calamita standing over a wounded Omie, gun drawn. Elvira allegedly could not understand English, while the younger Benders denied the claim. A trap door, nailed shut, was discovered on the cabin floor. It would make for a fun season of the show that's for sure. The burial site was christened Hells Half-Acre, and another brother of Dr. York, a lawyer and State Senator residing in Independence offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the Bender familys arrest. At Chanute, JohnJr. and Kate left the train and caught the MK&T train south to the terminus in Red River County near Denison, Texas. They broker an arrangement wherein Omie and his captive paint the building in exchange for being allowed to lie in wait. [19], The Ingalls family, made famous in the books and television series Little House on the Prairie, lived near Independence, and Laura Ingalls Wilder mentioned the Bender family in her writing and speeches. 20) May 1873: Dr William York. After following a fresh trail of wagon tracks, a search party found that the Benders had gone to the town of nearby Thayer, some twelve miles to the north. The Benders remained silent when most of the attendees volunteered to have their premises searched. Records of the incarceration back up this affidavit. Speaking English fluently with a German accent, he was said to have been social, but he was prone to laughing aimlessly, which led many people to think of him as a half-wit. As more and more travelers disappeared, suspicion began to center on the Benders. Fixed: Release in which this issue/RFE has been fixed.The release containing this fix may be available for download as an Early Access Release or a General Availability Release. While popular retelling of the story holds that John Jr. and Kate were siblings, contemporary newspapers reported . York had two brothers: Ed York living in Fort Scott, and Colonel Alexander M. York, a Civil War veteran, lawyer, and member of the Kansas State Senate from Independence who, in November 1872, had been instrumental in exposing U.S. Press J to jump to the feed. John Bender, Sr. chose a 160-acre section on the western slopes of the mounds that continue to bear their name today. Across the hall from them, on the east side of the building, is an Old Testament preacher and his mother (whom the resident gabby salesman- west- mistakes for the preachers wife). James, John Towner; The Benders of Kansas; Kan-Okla Publishing, Wichita, KS, 1913, reprinted 1995. The Mellon family is a wealthy and influential American family from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Benders were undoubtedly surprised to find that the man wasnt dead. Rounding out the boardinghouse crew (west side) is a young man on his way to make it rich on the Texas oil fields. (AP) - A man already in prison . He returns his attention to Rabbi, who has noticed something behind the Italian: a bona fide Wizard of Oz tornado. 23) February 1872: Two unidentified men found on the prairie in February 1872 with crushed skulls and throats cut. Shortly after theyve settled, Rabbi leaves Satchel alone with his usual goodbye of, If I dont come back, Im dead or in jail. He drives into Liberal to see about the money he left behind, only to discover that the feed store was sold at auction and has been converted to an appliance store by a pair of brothers. Tole reported the news to Leroy F Dick, the Township Trustee, and a search party was soon formed, which included Dr. Yorks brother, Colonel A.M. York, of Fort Scott. However, as more time passed, the disappearances became more frequent, and by the spring of 1873, the region had become strife with rumors, and travelers began to avoid the trail. When a traveler was seated at the table, his head was outlined against the curtain. Judge Calvin dismissed Mary Gardei's affidavit as she was a "chip off the old block"; he found that other affidavits supporting Gardei's were sufficient proof that the women could never be convicted, however, and he discharged them both. All Rights Reserved. The women's identities were later confirmed by two Osage township witnesses from a tintype photograph. Other bodies found in the garden were those of Henry McKenzies mutilated remains, three men by the names of Ben Brown, W.F. Cherryvale, Kansas Museum The family includes Andrew Mellon, one of the longest-serving U.S. Treasury Secretaries, along with prominent members in the judicial, banking, financial, business, and political professions, as well as a famous recluse, Cordelia Scaife May . The Benders were not what they appeared. Each season of Fargo stands alone - you can watch them all out of order and still be able to understand what's going on. She is fun enough. Markers of the Kansas state historical markers program administered by the Kansas Historical Society and Kansas Department of Transportation. Four other bodies with crushed skulls and slit throats were also found outside the property in Drum Creek and on the surrounding prairie. They set up an inn, lured people into staying, then either hit them with a hammer or cut there throats with a knife before burying them in an apple orchard. 620-336-3576. Instead, we downshift hard into the side story ofSatchel (Rodney L Jones III) andRabbi (Ben Whishaw) on the lam, withConstant Calamita (Gaetano Bruno) on their tail. Fortunately, Rabbi returns in time to shut down the likely police shooting and receives a warning from the officer about keeping his colored boy out of sight in a town like that. McCrotty, and John Geary, as well as an unidentified male and female. Thomas Jefferson was one of the first to excavate into a Native American burial mound, citing the disappearance of the "noble" Indianscaused by violence and the corruption of the encroaching white. Allegedly, while working at the Bender Inn, she earned her keep as a prostitute, adding an additional amount to the travelers bill for the privilege of laying with her.
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