They really didn’t belong in the 19th century. They would have been far more suited to the 20th or 21st centuries. There is no certain way to know their real names, but they went by the name of Bender. They lived near Cherryvale, in Labette County, Kansas. We cannot even know, at this late date, if they were genuinely related, or if it simply suited their purposes to appear so.
Ostensibly, they ran an “inn,” supplying travelers with hospitality – a meal, a place to stay. There was Ma and Pa Bender, and their two grown children, John, and most notably, young and pretty Katie. However, in reality, they really weren’t innkeepers at all. They were murderers, and of the most vile sort. No one will ever know exactly how many people met their end at the remote Bender cabin. Some were buried on the property, but others were simply dragged out to remote places on the prairie and left for wolves, vultures, coyotes, ants.
Their modus operandi was fairly simply. Their “guest” was invited to sit at a table with his or her back against a curtain drawn across the one-room cabin, supposedly separating the living quarters from the guest’s quarters. As the victim sat, probably engaged in conversation with vivacious Katie Bender, one of the other “family” members stood behind the curtain and bashed the victim’s brains out with a hammer. Then, their throats were cut and they were dumped into a cellar, the trapdoor to which was conveniently under the table. The bodies were disposed of later.
At a time and place on the American frontier, when death was fairly commonplace, the Benders were monsters. God only knows how long their depredations would have continued, but they finally killed someone who was missed. He was Doctor William York, and his brother, Colonel Ed York of Fort Scott, Kansas, set grimly out to find what had become of his sibling.
Locals had been aware for some time of the fact that travelers seemed to go missing with an alarming regularity in the vicinity. Ed York and his men interviewed many of the Bender neighbors, and all of the missing people seemed to be last seen in the vicinity of the Bender cabin. York and his men went there and interrogated the Benders, but then left to gather more evidence. When they returned, the Benders had disappeared. A wagon identified as theirs was discovered at nearby Thayer. It was theorized that the family had disbanded and gone in different directions to confuse pursuit. In the end, they were never captured,
Horror on the plains
Eight bodies were discovered buried in the Bender yard, including that of William York. In one of the graves, they found the body of a toddler, a little girl who had been thrown into the grave, apparently still alive. Monsters.
Recent research by historian Phyllis de la Garza had indicated that Katie and possibly one of the other family members, were hiding in plain sight, without even bothering to change their names, in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Katie Bender, who died a respected member of the community, lies a few yards from the grave marker of the legendary John “Doc” Holliday.
The real problem is that at this late date, it is impossible to know for certain. The Benders were German, and in Germany, the name Bender is apparently as common as “Smith” is here.
In his autobiography, the west’s deadliest gunfighter, John Wesley Hardin, recounts his stay at a place that had to have been the Bender cabin. Of course, they did not know him. To them, he was probably just some youthful cowboy. But Hardin, wary as a coyote, refused to sit with his back to a curtain. The next day, he left, going about his own deadly business, and never really knowing the true character of the people with whom he had spent the night.
It’s too bad he didn’t. Hardin was a killer, to be sure, but only of men, and almost always in a fair fight. He always had something of an odd (considering he spent most of his life on the run) pre-occupation with law and order, and particularly gallantry. Had he known the Benders for what they really were, he would have undoubtedly killed each and every one of the men he found on the property and then dragged the women to the nearest law enforcement agency. Hardin was a killer. But the Benders were monsters of the sort that makes one hope there is a hell and that they are roasting in it.
Taken from previously published works of the author.