What happened to the bloody Bender family?

What happened to the bloody Bender family?

What Happened to the Bloody Benders? Nearly a dozen travelers who stopped at their small inn were murdered, and their bodies later found buried on the Benders’ property. The family of four disappeared before they could be arrested.

What did the Bloody Benders do?

Once the body was in the basement, the Bloody Benders, as they later became known, would strip it of any clothes and valuables and bury it in a mass grave. Money was certainly part of why the Bloody Benders decided to start killing their victims.

Is Bender Based on a true story?

In 2013, John Alexander, of Los Angeles, and JC Guest, of Asheville, N.C., now Harvard alums, traveled to Kansas in the middle of summer to make a film based on a true legend of the western frontier. The story of the Bender’s is a Kansas family who owned an inn and general store in Labette County from 1871 to 1873.

How many bodies did they find on the Bender property?

Ten bodies
Ten bodies were found in the Bender’s apple orchard, including Dr. York and the people he had been searching for – Mr. Loncher and his daughter, just seven or eight years old.

Did the Bender family get caught?

Many stories say that one vigilante group actually caught the Benders and shot all of them but Kate, whom they burned alive. Yet another claimed to have killed the Benders during a gunfight and buried their bodies on the prairie. No one ever claimed the $3,000 reward ($64,808 as of 2021), however.

Was the Bender family ever caught?

None of the Benders were ever caught, although investigators were said to have found their true identities. The funny thing about the Bloody Benders is that they weren’t actually a family. It’s said that only Ma and Kate were likely related. Pa and Ma were indeed of German descent.

Is the Bender family house still standing?

The Benders’ cabin was demolished long ago, and the precise location of the home and its garden are not known. But morbid mementos of the crime may still linger beneath the surface of the land. Though most accounts place the number of victims at around a dozen, some believe the Benders killed as many as 21 people.

Who is Kate Bender?

A self-proclaimed healer and psychic, she distributed flyers advertising her supernatural powers and her ability to cure illnesses. She also conducted séances and gave lectures on spiritualism, for which she gained notoriety for advocating free love. Kate’s popularity became a large attraction for the Benders’ inn.