crazy

In the early 1870s, a family calling themselves the Benders settled beside the Osage Trail in Labette County, Kansas, and kept a cabin that served as a store and inn for travelers heading west. There were four of them: an older couple, John Bender and his wife, and a younger man and woman known as John Junior and Kate. A canvas sheet divided the single room. Guests were seated at the table with their backs to it, and struck from behind. The bodies were dropped through a trap door into the cellar and buried in the orchard. People had been disappearing along that stretch of road for months. In March 1873, a doctor, William York, vanished while searching for another missing traveler. His brother, a Kansas state senator, led armed parties along the trail and questioned the Benders. In early May, neighbors noticed that the cabin stood abandoned and the livestock were starving. Searchers dug up the orchard and found the remains of at least eleven people. The family had scattered. A reward was offered and never collected. Vigilantes later claimed to have caught and killed them, but no bodies were identified, and no Bender was ever tried. Learn more: bit.ly/4hyiggT