A Family That Slays Together - Part 1

Welcome to Red Herrings!

This week, Brittany tells us about a family that shared a gruesome hobby...

Hosted by: Brittany Warren & Joccoaa Gray
 
Sound Engineer & Co-host: Christopher Brown
 
Edited by: Joccoaa Gray

If you would like to get in touch, please contact us at redherringspod@gmail.com.

Sources:

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:01

Welcome to Red Herrings. I'm Jacoa, Master's student in law and human rights, host of True Crime Club Newcastle, and creator of True Crime Forum Newcastle.

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Hi, I'm Brittany. I have two degrees in history and 15 years experience in genealogy. We're the red herrings.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Well, well, well. What do we have here? Two red herrings and the catch of the day. Don't forget about me.

SPEAKER_04 0:26

Hi, Chris! We're the red herrings.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

And Chris.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

Okay, so this one's gonna be a two-parter. So just a little warning. This one is very gruesome. It has I've tried to cut out detail a little bit so it's not over the top, but there is some moments where it's a bit gross.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

That's fine. We like gross.

SPEAKER_04 0:50

That's not what you said last time, told you. No complaints here.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

As long as it doesn't involve eyes. Yes. That's fine.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

We found that out.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Or needles.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

Well no, it involves both of those. It it doesn't involve needles that I'm aware of. But it does involve eyes. Well, there was there's the word eye once, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

I'll I'll close my ears for that one.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Okay.

unknown 1:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

Now, I need you guys to come up with your best insult to each other. Be creative.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

I mean, there's a lot of um Postial. Wow. Okay. I was gonna say there's a lot of material for Jacoa, and I don't want to be too mean. So I'm gonna pull my punches on this.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

Wow. I would never insult.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

I would never I would never insult a woman.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

So um come on, guys. Be mean. Gay lord.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

I'm about to be married to a woman. Well, I think she's a woman.

SPEAKER_04 1:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

One day I'll see her naked.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

Come on then, Chris. You haven't said anything yet. I'm not gonna lie. I told him this two weeks ago. You couldn't think of anything. I said, I'm giving you a two weeks heads up.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

I'm not very good at insulting people when I'm when I'm like in front of them. Behind their backs. That's another matter.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

Backstabber.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

I couldn't possibly.

SPEAKER_04 2:09

Come on, give us your best shot.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Oh my goodness. You put me on the spot.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

I gave you two weeks' notice.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

I mean, obviously Jacos get a commitment. She's unemployed.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

Oh my god, okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

The unemployed one. She's gonna be a perpetual academic. Um, which isn't a bad thing.

SPEAKER_04 2:29

Probably just will continue to be unemployed.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Which is fine.

SPEAKER_04 2:34

Yeah, that's not much you can insult me with.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

No, you're a pretty good person, actually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

Oh, bloody? Oh, did that hurt you the sense of? He needs to go rinse his mouth out. I know I do. Jeez.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

So I'll just go with I've got past the homophobia now, so forey posho. Fore eyed posho. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

Well, I asked you that because as we go through this, there's gonna be just a lot of insults that I've gotten from newspapers or firsthand accounts, and I just thought it'd be a really fun way to kick it off.

SPEAKER_04 3:04

Wasn't there I don't know where this is from, but there's a really bad insult in some sort of literature. Maybe it's like from um Shakespeare or something, where it's like you yellow bellied something. Yellow belly thumbs up.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Yeah. Like, what is it? It's like I bite my thumb at you or something like that. Yes, it's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I do bite my thumb, sir.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

Okay. So it was in many ways an easy place to disappear.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Northumberland.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

I mean the Osage Mission Trail cut across Kansas, and in the mid-1800s it was sparsely settled and incredibly dangerous. The what? Sorry? The Osage Mission Trail. It's been a terror for me to say. Osage. Like Os A-G-E mission trail trail. Osage.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Are we sure it's Osage?

SPEAKER_03 4:01

I mean that's I don't think so. That's how Shane and Ryan on Watcher on YouTube pronounced it. And I'm not saying they're like they have all the knowledge or Osage like Farage. Maybe. No, that would be Osage.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Osage. We'll go with Osage.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

So yes, this is the mid-1800s in Kansas. It was sparsely settled, very, very dangerous. Travelers pass through at their own risk and dependent heavily on the scattered homesteads along the way for food, rest, and shelter. And your first photo that you have is of the US, and I've just highlighted Kansas for you. Slap bang in the middle. Literally in the middle.

SPEAKER_04 4:44

Literally. Literally.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

The trail was used out of necessity since it was the only open corridor connecting settlements to the north and south, linking isolated homesteads to markets and towns, and providing a path westward into lands that were only partially surveyed. So there was not much out there.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

So this is like the wild gateway to the wild west. It literally is.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

It is the wild west. Ooh, okay. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Do you have any idea who it is?

SPEAKER_03 5:11

Cowboys.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

It's is it a cowboy? No.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Sorry. No cowboys. Anticlimactic. I know. Because that's for a later episode. Okay. And in a region already known for horse thieves and villains, the sudden absence of people did not always cause alarm. Especially if they had no friends or family nearby to be concerned.

SPEAKER_04 5:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

But by the 1870s, something had begun to change. Bodies of both travelers and locals were being found. On the trail. Off the trail, like just the area. So I tried to get a picture of what this trail was. It's like it was hundreds of miles long. And it could have been just off of it, in towns that were, you know, famous for being on it. But just so many bodies were being found.

SPEAKER_04 6:03

America's face serial killer.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Ooh. I don't know. Was it Highwaymen?

SPEAKER_04 6:08

I don't know. The Jersey Devil. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

The string of sausages.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

I still laugh about that sometimes. I've saved the pictures and everything. Oh yeah, me too. Oh, they're amazing.

SPEAKER_04 6:21

I haven't put them on Instagram yet. I will.

SPEAKER_03 6:23

Oh, it's gonna be great. In May of 1871, the body of a man named William Jones was discovered in Drum Creek. His throat cut and his skull crushed. The owner of Drum Creek was suspected, but no action was taken. Almost a year later, in February of 1872, two more bodies were discovered, both bearing the same injuries. Head smashed, throats cut. By 1873, reports of missing people who had passed through the area had become so frequent and so widely discussed that travelers began to avoid the trail altogether. Unfortunately, many of these disappearances were never investigated.

SPEAKER_04 7:05

Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Vigilante groups soon formed and often arrested people for the disappearances, but they would later be released by the authorities. But when Dr. William York failed to return home in the spring of 1873, it was different. York had set out a few weeks prior in the search for his friend George Loncorps, who had vanished months earlier while traveling to Iowa with his infant daughter, Mary Ann. They left independent Kansas and were never seen again.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

So we know they left the state.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

No, they left Indep Independence is the town. Oh, okay. So they left Independence, Kansas.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Why do they name their towns such stupid names?

SPEAKER_03 7:46

Jesus, to be fair.

SPEAKER_04 7:48

Pity me. Well and isn't there a place called Bollocks? No.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

Slaggyford? Yes. You can't talk, Chris.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

Okay, fair enough.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

If you go back to the map I first showed you, you can just see like where Iowa is. It's like diagonally up to the right. So they were going from Kansas, which I believe I've never been to Kansas, but I think independence is like the southeastern corner of Kansas, and then they were going up to Iowa. So you can see like where Iowa is in comparison. So it's like right there. Right. So the Georgia Marianne were traveling there. I didn't put his backstory in, but essentially him and his wife, they had a little boy, the little boy died, they had Marianne, and then the wife unfortunately passed away. I don't know if it was complications from childbirth or an illness. I don't remember. But they, I think it was the wife's family who was from Iowa, so they were just headed back there.

SPEAKER_04 8:44

And Iowa, so I'm just for the listeners, I'm looking at the map, it's sort of the next day over, but diagonally northeast.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

So it would be quite a ways away. Reports of their disappearance eventually came back to friends and neighbors raising concern for their welfare and for the safety of anyone traveling in the area. Dr. York followed their path through the prairie, making it to Fort Scott, Kansas, where he stayed for a couple of days. On March 9, 1873, he began his journey back to independence, but never made it. His brother, Colonel Alexander York, who was a Civil War veteran, lawyer, and member of the Kansas State Senate, gathered dozens of men to search for his brother. They retraced Dr. York's steps, questioned travelers, inquired at inns, and visited every single place between Independence and Fort Scott. And there's a little map, your next photo. So down in the bottom left corner, that's independence, and then the top right corner is Fort Scott. So today that's an hour and a half drive. So you can imagine at the time how long that would have taken it.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

This is three hours.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

Christopher, you're looking at the wrong map. That's independence and Fort Scott. Oh, I put two on there. You put that the one.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Oh sorry. Sorry, too bad. Are there two Fort Scott?

SPEAKER_03 10:04

No, I just I've duplicated the images, but you'll find out later. It's okay.

unknown 10:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

So anyway. Shut up. Shut up. So yeah, you can imagine how long that must have taken Colonel York and these dozens of men. I I saw 50 men, 100, 75. I don't know how many men he gathered, but they looked everywhere for his brother.

SPEAKER_04 10:26

The brother just sorry is the one with the infant.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

No, sorry. So the brother's Dr. William York he went looking for George Loncor and George's daughter, Marianne. Right. So they were, I don't know if they were neighbors, but they definitely knew each other because Dr. York had actually sold George horses that would take them to Iowa.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

So George goes missing. Dr. York looks for George, disappears. Yep. Now a hundred people and his brother are looking for him.

SPEAKER_04 10:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 10:54

Thank you, everyone. I occasionally zone out by accident.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

All the time when Brittany's talking.

SPEAKER_04 11:01

Alright. Just when any woman's talking about it. I think that's Yamu.

SPEAKER_03 11:06

It was during this investigation on March 28th that they came across a small homestead, isolated, but strategically located along the trail, roughly seven miles northeast of Cherry Vale. We will get to where Cherry Vale is, don't worry.

SPEAKER_04 11:22

Chris makes wants to make a joke about Cherry Vale. I can tell.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Oh my god, you've got a dirty mind. I was gonna say it's a house in the middle of nowhere, like where we all live.

SPEAKER_04 11:37

Oh yeah. Fair. Yeah, but these days, like it must have been I mean, we think this is remote, but that would have been like hella remote, right? And it's like when you say homestead, you just mean like a is that a house or is that like four houses? Oh no, just one. One.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

It would just be like one with land, and most likely it would be a cabin.

SPEAKER_04 11:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

Mm-hmm. On your map, you can see very close to independence where Cherry Vale is, the dark purple line actually runs through it.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Oh, okay. So we're close to independence.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

Yeah, so they lived about seven miles northeast of Cherryvale, this house that Colonel York went to. I'm sorry. Help me what? Oh, yeah. So there's two maps. Sorry. So do you see right there Cherry Vale? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

So Oh, so when she goes to the wrong map, it's like, oh no, honey, there's two maps. No, because I go to the wrong map. Chris, stop going forward.

SPEAKER_04 12:27

No, actually, because the the when you did it, it was the first map she'd referred to at all. It was quite obvious. Okay. But this one, I thought she had said go with your second map. Sorry, not yet. We're still on the first map.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

You're still in trouble, Chris.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_03 12:43

I'm always in trouble. It was a modest one room cabin with a small barn, a small vegetable garden, and a two-acre apple orchard. York asked the family if they had seen his brother. They agreed yes. Dr. York had actually stayed with him, but he left the next morning. They suggested he might have run into trouble with Native Americans.

SPEAKER_04 13:05

Now trying to build a narrative. And Les Blame.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

Colonel York agreed this very well could have been a possibility, so he stayed for dinner and left.

SPEAKER_04 13:13

Oh no, did he eat his brother? Is this a Hill Safe situation?

SPEAKER_03 13:18

It's not that gruesome that we are aware of.

SPEAKER_04 13:21

I don't know, just save up a lamb wink wink leg winkwink, you know.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

Here's Dr. William York. On April 3rd, a few days later, Colonel York returned to the homestead after reports that the family living there had threatened a woman with knives. There was a dispute when he repeated the accusation, and the elder woman became enraged, shouting that the woman they had threatened was a witch who cursed her coffee, and then she ordered the men to leave her house. Now, perfectly normal for that time, right?

SPEAKER_04 13:56

Especially in America.

SPEAKER_03 13:57

Oh yeah, perfectly normal nowadays.

SPEAKER_04 13:59

In America. Uh-huh. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

We all curse people. It's coffee.

SPEAKER_04 14:03

And call people witches and threaten them with knives. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't care. Thanks. That and Scotland.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

We're doing well as podcasts.

SPEAKER_04 14:16

We are. This is why we need you here, Brittany. Go off.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

I don't really care because you just edit it out, so it doesn't really matter.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

She edits it out when she's saying it. When we say it, she leaves it all in.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Oh, I love it.

SPEAKER_04 14:29

I took out your immigrant joke.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Making sure to talk into the mic as you say that.

SPEAKER_04 14:37

Just in case I'm feeling naughty when I'm doing this.

SPEAKER_03 14:41

In doing so, she revealed for the first time that her sense of the English language was far better than she previously had let on. Why? Where was she from? You just have to wait. He eventually decided to leave the family as there was no concrete proof to the claim. But before he did, one of the members promised that if he returned the following Friday evening, they would use their clairvoyant abilities to help him find his missing brother. Well, they're just gonna kill him.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

You're gonna look under the floorboards and pull up his uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

Oh my god. Colonel York did not accept this offer. Okay. Mm-hmm. Smart. Yeah. Yeah. Smart smart man.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Get out of my house, but come back tomorrow and we can use my own. We'll talk to the ghosties.

SPEAKER_04 15:27

I promise you'll be safe. Oh my god, that's scary.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

On April 12th, the governor of Kansas published a proclamation offering a $500 reward for any information regarding the disappearances of Dr. William York, George Loncourt, Mary Ann Loncorps, Benjamin Brown, and William Jones. No one ever came forward with information or claimed the money. No one ever came forward that I could find that we are aware of that was reported. Right, that was okay.

SPEAKER_04 16:00

Because I was just thinking like that would be weird if they're offering £500 and literally no one phoned in.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Especially at that time in the 1870s. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 16:17

You see what I have to deal with? Oh literally, no. And Sherry's an absolute delight to live with.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

Oh yeah, most of the time.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Thanks. And make up for it in other ways. That fakes. Wow. I don't know where you're going with this.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

As time went on and the disappearances continued, suspicion was spreading, prompting a township meeting at Harmony Grove Schoolhouse, where 75 men gathered to discuss the situation. Among the men was Colonel York. The decision was made to obtain warrants and search every homestead in the area between Big Hill Creek and Drum Creek. Now you can look at your second map. So right above like where Cherryville is, that's Drum Creek. And then right below, that's Big Hill Creek. So just to show you, like, that's the area that they're searching. So it really isn't that big of an area.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Okay. Do we know why it's called Big Hill Creek?

SPEAKER_03 17:17

I'm assuming there's a very small hill.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Okay, right.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

Did they get that warrant? To be honest, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 17:24

Because that's if they did, that's mad. To search every homestead, like you can't do that.

SPEAKER_03 17:31

I wanna say they did, but the story goes in a different direction. Alright, fair enough. So I didn't actually look into it, but I genuinely do think it was either like in the works or they had gotten it. Just because of Colonel York, he was part of the state senate, and then the the governor was involved. So I do think like, yeah, okay. It must have gotten to a certain point.

SPEAKER_04 17:52

That just feels so um, what's the word? Like um, not intimate, but like that feels like invasive.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

That feels especially in America, because it's like my home's my castle, etc. etc. And you can't I'm sure there's something in constitutional that you can't just go into like how many homes would that be?

SPEAKER_03 18:10

Like I don't I don't know, to be honest, because it's rural. There's not that many. I don't think um I could be wrong. I've never been to Kansas, never been to this area, but I'm picturing it like, you know, I wouldn't say there's thousands. Right, and especially hundreds. Yeah. Okay, okay. Maybe not even a couple hundred, I don't know. Three days after the meeting, in early May, Billy Toll was driving cattle past the small homestead when he noticed it was oddly quiet. The animals had been unfed, and an odd depression in the garden caught his eye. They're all dead. Toll reported his discovery to the township trustees, but due to the weather, no one was able to check on the homestead for several days. On March 6th, a search party of over a hundred men arrived at the house, where they found the cabin empty of food, clothing, and personal belongings.

SPEAKER_04 19:05

They've run away.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

Closer inspection revealed dozens of bullet holes scattered through the walls, windows, floor, and ceiling. Everything of value had been deliberately removed. What are your thoughts so far? I wish I could take a photo of your face. It's not the the direction you thought it was going. I have no idea what happened there.

unknown 19:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

I mean, are the bullet holes like have they fled and the bullet holes are to pretend that someone was ransacking the place?

SPEAKER_04 19:34

No blood anywhere? She's shrugging. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

I don't know. I can't say anything because we'll get to it, but everything's been taken.

SPEAKER_04 19:42

Let's go through the facts. Yes. Go. This is the same homestead that the family were there that York, am I right, went to. Yes. They told him to go away. He returned. Yep. There was a threat to somebody else. They were weird. He left again. Yes. They had this meeting, so this is a few days later, after that, someone's come across this same homestead, found it empty. A few days after that, they finally searched it. All of the belongings have gone. Like personal belongings. Personal belongings and valuable valuables. Valuables. Valuables. Valuables. And there's bullet holes everywhere. Everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

And a strange depression in the garden.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Okay. Are we saying they've buried something in the garden? If they've buried something and they had time to bury something, I don't think you you'd stay and bury something if you're being shot at. But Oh, I guess it could be the people that raided the house burying things.

SPEAKER_04 20:42

But even people have come to the house, they've massacred the family. They're not yes, they'd take in the valuables, but why are they taking personal items? Yeah. Unless it was orchestrated by one of the family members.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Oh, yeah. One of them's like spat stabbing the others.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

Could be.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:07

Could be. I love this discussion. I feel like oh, it makes me happy because I feel like I've chosen a good case now.

SPEAKER_04 21:13

Oh my god, you always choose good cases. Every case you do is amazing.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

I love this one. And I I was literally deep diving into it for like two weeks. Amazing. That's why I had to push it off last week. I'm like, I there's so much information.

SPEAKER_04 21:24

Um Yeah, she sent me a voice note and she was like, I just can we not do this week because I just want this to be perfect. I need more time. It's like, I can't wait.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

Oh, so good. A knife with a four-inch tapered blade was discovered within a mantle clock. What's a tapered blade? Like it's like bigger at the handle and then as it goes towards it, like gets smaller. Three hammers. It was found where, sorry. It was hidden within a mantle clock.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

And how long was the blade?

SPEAKER_03 21:52

Four inches.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

What's a mantle clock?

SPEAKER_03 21:54

The clock on the wall, I'm assuming.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Probably on the mantle at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

Probably. I have to get my visuals okay.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

I I get it. Right, Chris? I get it. I got it. Right, four rise. Okay. A mantle clock is a posh antique clock that sits on your mantle piece.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

Sure. Right. Mm-hmm. Three hammers, a shoe hammer, a claw hammer, and a sledgehammer were also discovered. I don't know what a shoe hammer and a claw hammer are, but they're hammers. Unless you tell me they're covered in blood, that is not weird.

SPEAKER_04 22:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Are they covered in blood?

SPEAKER_04 22:28

No.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 22:29

It's a homestead in the middle.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

They got hammers.

SPEAKER_04 22:31

18 yeah. Got hammers.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

They need to repair their shoes.

SPEAKER_04 22:34

Mm-hmm. And maybe the knife was hidden in the mantle clock for safety. Potentially, yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

Nothing's clear. They've got tools in their house. But then came the smell. Oh god. It was traced to a trapdoor underneath the bed that was nailed shut.

SPEAKER_04 22:53

Oh my god. Okay, wait. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

So it was nailed shut. So okay. So they're not in there. Or some someone's in there.

SPEAKER_04 23:02

Okay. I I have questions that you're not going to be able to answer. I want to know how strong this smell was. I don't know that. Yeah. And I because if it was super strong, I would have suspected that York would have been able to smell it when he dropped by the house. If this is like gonna be the bodies of the people we're looking for who are in the family.

SPEAKER_03 23:20

Okay. I don't know, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_04 23:22

And if it is the family, then who's in the garden?

SPEAKER_03 23:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:25

And if it isn't the family, then who's in the garden?

SPEAKER_02 23:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

When the men forced it open, they discovered a cellar beneath the house, six feet deep, seven feet wide at the top, and three feet wide at the bottom. The floor was thick with clotted blood that soaked deep into the soil with no bodies. No bodies.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 23:50

So somebody moved those bodies.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

So it's like a drainage ditch almost. If it's getting getting dinner as it goes through.

SPEAKER_03 23:58

Well, okay. Okay. Are you okay?

SPEAKER_01 24:02

It's not that much it's not that big a it's not.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

It's actually quite small because uh everything describes it as a cellar, but I'm like, to me, a cellar is a basement. Yeah. This is just a trapdoor with a chute into the ground.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

It's basically big enough for one person to stand in. Yeah. Yes. Like put their arms out.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 24:19

Yep. Okay, sorry, carry on.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

No, don't apologize. I want to hear your thoughts. There was no mistaking the purpose of the space. It had been used again and again for something brutal.

SPEAKER_04 24:29

Oh my god, again and again.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Was this where they made their York pies?

SPEAKER_03 24:34

Well, this is what I'm saying.

unknown 24:35

God.

SPEAKER_03 24:36

No, who knows? The men broke through the stone slab floor with sledge hammers, but didn't find anything. They probed around the outside of the house, looking for any clues of what might have happened to the family or why there was a trapdoor stained with blood. They found nothing. Doing the extraordinary, they lifted the house from its foundation and moved it aside. You're gonna see a picture.

SPEAKER_04 25:02

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Okay. No, we're focusing on the house now.

SPEAKER_04 25:07

So they've lifted it off. Its foundations.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

Moved it aside, exposing the ground beneath, determined to uncover whatever was hidden there, but still they found nothing. They proceeded to search the orchard and vegetable garden, especially the disturbed soil that first caught Billy Toll's attention. Yeah. Okay. That evening, the first body was discovered. Okay. Dr. William York. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Okay, so they did do it.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

He had been buried face down, less than 200 yards from the house. His body placed so close to the surface that his feet were barely covered by soil.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Damn, so his brother's body must have not been buried when he was there. Must have been under the bed.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

Yes. I don't know. Well, because he would have noticed the indentation in the ground when he was told. Potentially.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Damn.

SPEAKER_03 25:54

Yeah, or maybe he just didn't because he didn't go by himself. He went with other people. So maybe they were just they they just didn't notice. Yeah. But also I'm trying to think of the timeline because so we know Dr. York got to Fort Scott, which was the place all the way in the top right hand corner, right? On March 9th. That's when he left Fort Scott. I don't know how long it takes, like days-wise, but it couldn't have been that long after March 9th. And then I think Colonel York, it was March 28th. So let's say like less than 20 days after. So I don't know if he would have been in he would not have been in the trap.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Starting to smell at that point, right?

SPEAKER_03 26:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:33

So wait. The brother that went on the search. Yes. Searched less than 20 days after the Dr. York went missing. Yes. Left Fort Scott.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 26:45

So he must have been alive for a bit then. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

I mean Oh, you think they kept him alive?

SPEAKER_04 26:53

You think they kept him alive? I don't know. I'm just thinking, well, I guess we don't know how decomposed this body was, but if the blood's still wet and smelling in the trap, that's pretty fresh.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

But who Oh it could have been an extra person. Could be more people after William York.

SPEAKER_03 27:09

After William. I don't know. I'm not gonna say anything more because I must have said something. This is where it gets just it's like a one-liner, but it's a little gruesome. This is the eyeball. Dr. York's face was bruised, the back of the skull was broken, and his temples were crushed. One eye was out of the socket, and his throat had been cut. Colonel York identified his brother's body. By midnight. By midnight, three more bodies had been found, a handful of possible graves identified, flagged, and to be dug up in the morning, and dismembered body parts that did not appear to belong to any single individual were found in a well. When the search was complete the following day, the scale of what had occurred at that quiet homestead could no longer be denied. Word spread quickly, drawing thousands of visitors, reporters, and curiosity seekers from around the country.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Really people really had nothing better to do, did they?

SPEAKER_03 28:04

They didn't.

SPEAKER_04 28:05

Oh, we do that now, I try.

SPEAKER_03 28:07

Yeah, we do. It was only then, standing among the disturbed earth, the open graves, and the remnants of a home that had concealed so much that the name began to circulate. What name? Welcome to the story of the bloody benders. The bloody benders. You're probably wondering. Brittany. Who are the Benders? I'm aware of what Bender means here. But that was genuinely their surname.

SPEAKER_04 28:37

I just listened to an in-depth two-parter on this case this week. No, you did not. No. But you are very fortunate that I have terrible ADHD. Did you actually listen to a two-parter on it? I did not take in a lot of it.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

I think you probably would have recognised it by now.

SPEAKER_04 28:59

If I hadn't listened to it this week, I wouldn't have known. I've definitely heard it before, but I I don't know how much of it I retained.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Well that's fine because you can chime in with the stuff that we I don't know, but if you asked me to like retell the story now, I couldn't.

SPEAKER_04 29:17

Like that's how little I paid attention. Right, let's go.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

So in sync.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

So, do you do you remember who the Benders are? Do you want to know? Okay. Do you wanna um take a guess as to why they're the bloody Benders?

SPEAKER_04 29:33

Because they killed a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03 29:35

Great. So we have John Bender. You have this on your phone as well. But we have John Bender.

SPEAKER_04 29:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 29:42

A man in his 60s spoke little English and was described as repulsive, hideous, without a redeeming trait, dirty, profane, and ill-tempered. When he spoke English, it was guttural and unintelligible.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

Brittany has just thrust up a drawing of John Bender.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Did you do those?

SPEAKER_03 30:02

Um no, these were actually in the newspapers. It's pretty decent. Kate Bender. 55 years old, and was so unfriendly that the community referred to her as a as a dirty old Dutch crone and a she-devil with a face fit of the midnight hag that wove the murderous ambition about the soul of Macbeth. Please hold it.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Wow, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_03 30:30

A face fit for the midnight hag. Yes. Wow. That wove the murderous ambition about the soul of Macbeth. John Bender was in his mid-twenties, had auburn hair, a mustache, and a German accent, and was prone to laughing aimlessly, reminiscent of the grave robbing hyena at once to mind, and was called a half-wit.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Looks a bit like me but with a mustache.

SPEAKER_03 30:56

Ah, yeah, actually. Do you say moustache? No. Do you don't actually? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

What's wrong with that? What is wrong with that? It's mustache. Maybe your world.

SPEAKER_03 31:11

Kate Bender. Right, wait, we've got two Johns and two Kates. Yeah, hold your horses.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Were they in bred?

SPEAKER_03 31:17

Hold your horses.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Oh, they were in bred.

SPEAKER_03 31:19

Kate Bender, aged twenty-three, cultivated, attractive, and articulate, conducted seances, advertised her psychic powers and her ability to cure illnesses. She advocated free love, sometimes stating in her lecture manuscript, Shall we confine ourselves to a single love and deny our natures their proper sway? Even though it be a brother's passion for his own sister, I say it should not be smothered. In one newspaper, Kate was described as one of the most infernal hags of the whole nest. The family as a whole was characterized in similar terms. The old demon, his consort, and the two young ones, and ubiquitous and bloody folk. Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

Anything immediately come to mind about them?

SPEAKER_04 32:08

Well, I think Chris nailed it with inbred, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:11

I mean she was saying that Well, she was she was promoting it, right? No? Yeah. Wild.

SPEAKER_03 32:17

Mm-hmm. How do you think they're related?

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Oh god, is their family tree more like a a circle?

SPEAKER_03 32:24

Fantastic question. It's just a bush rather than a tree.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Oh god. So I'm guessing the first two are the parents or no. Yeah, I thought that.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

Some of your thoughts.

SPEAKER_04 32:34

Yeah, so the first two are the parents. Okay. And then the second two are the kids that that um squash gennels.

SPEAKER_03 32:43

Right. Okay. So on your phones, you have those four photos, so you can always reference them. And then there's an advertisement referring to Kate as a healer. So she went by uh Professor Mrs. Katie Bender.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Can heal all sorts of diseases, can cure blindness, fits, deafness, and all such diseases. Also deaf and dumbness. Damn. Mm-hmm. You can't fake curing blindness, can you?

SPEAKER_04 33:10

In the 1870s, you could.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Well you just kill them.

SPEAKER_04 33:13

It's I don't know if this is just what they did in those days, but it's a bit sus that she then has how to get to their homestead if you want this service.

SPEAKER_03 33:22

I didn't actually see that.

SPEAKER_04 33:24

Because then it's like she they're luring people to the house. Oh yes. Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Oh, so this was a way of getting victims. Uh-huh. Right.

SPEAKER_04 33:32

Uh-huh. But something that I've been wondering this whole time up till now is what's the motivation behind these killings?

SPEAKER_03 33:40

Mm-hmm. What do you think?

SPEAKER_04 33:42

Well, I I I can't work it out. I mean I I mean, I'm guessing they take everything off the people, so it's like some sort of burglary. But I feel like the way they have this method of the smashed heads and the cutthroat just feels more methodical and f for a reason rather than just it being burglaries all the time or robbery all the time, because then you would just sort of adapt it to whatever you had on hand. But it feels like this is quite meticulous actually. Or unless it just the first time it worked that way, so then they just never never mixed it up.

SPEAKER_03 34:20

Maybe.

SPEAKER_04 34:21

But I don't know what the the reasons are. Okay. And it's men, so I mean, not that it can't be sexual with men, but it's not.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

I just don't think there was a lot of women travelling at the time, especially alone. So I don't think it was necessarily, oh, we target men. I think it was just the people who walked into their house.

SPEAKER_04 34:40

But what for?

SPEAKER_03 34:42

We'll get there.

SPEAKER_04 34:43

Okay. So it must be money, right? No?

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Well, that's what I'm thinking, but then the way that they're all killed, the fact that it's the same every time just feels it to me, it makes sense that it's the same every time, because I don't know if if they're doing a séance or whatever, they get them to all close their eyes and then they just bonk them over the head, no?

SPEAKER_04 34:59

Oh, so someone like gets up and then you bonk them over the back of the head and slit their throat and take their stuff.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Well, I guess. I mean I don't know. I mean, if it's like trying to cure their blindness, maybe you get them to lie down in a darkened room and then close their eyes, bonk.

SPEAKER_04 35:13

Yeah. This makes sense. So that's a little bit like, yeah, it just worked the first time. This is a clean thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

They don't want to have to like actually like worry about them getting up, so they just whack them over the head with the hammer sorted.

SPEAKER_04 35:25

But then also, I'm sorry, but why are they why then would they be even getting to the point where they sit them down and pretend to have a seance like you've got someone come to your house, just open the door and shoot them in the face if you just want to rob them.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

I suppose, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:38

Why are they not doing that? Is there is there like some sort of sadistic nature to this? Is there more to it than robbery?

SPEAKER_03 35:45

Okay. Now, tell me your final thoughts on how they're related.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Well, I I I guess it's all I can think of is two parents and then the brother and sister.

SPEAKER_03 35:53

Okay. I mean, I don't know. Okay. The truth is we don't know. Okay. No documentation has ever been found to definitively explain how the benders were related to one another or where they came from. They may not have even been related. It might not have.

SPEAKER_04 36:09

Okay, who knows?

SPEAKER_03 36:10

Contemporary accounts contradicted each other. Some insisted the younger pair were siblings, while others claimed they were husband and wife in a common law marriage.

SPEAKER_04 36:20

But she did specifically say, didn't she, about loving her brother and to be smothered.

SPEAKER_03 36:25

I personally believe they were siblings. And we're just going at it. Like rabbits. Yeah. Like rabbits.

SPEAKER_04 36:34

Thanks for that extra detail.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

You're welcome. For the sake of the story, I'll be referring to the elder Benders as John and Kate and the younger Benders as John Jr. and Kate Jr. So we know. What we do know begins in October of 1870. So three years before the bodies are found. When five families of spiritualists homesteaded in northwestern Libette County, Kansas. One of these families were the two John Benders who registered 160 acres of land right next to the Osage Trail. They built a cabin, a barn, a well, and sent for the two Cates. They were widely believed to be German immigrants, though some suggest ties to Norway, the Netherlands, or even France. Census records from 1870 place a family matching their general description in Decatur, Illinois, with most members listed as German born and one as French, but this has never been confirmed to be the Benders. We have no idea who they are.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

But if uh this Bender is not a very German surname, is it true?

SPEAKER_03 37:41

Oh, I thought it would be.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Really?

SPEAKER_03 37:42

I I thought it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

I've never heard of any Benders in Germany.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

Well, you didn't live in Germany. I mean neither did I.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

I'm not up to date on my Benders, to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 37:50

I don't know. I I can see it as being like both uh both like a German and potentially even an English certain thing.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Yeah, I would say it was more English, but maybe they could have just moved there and changed the name.

SPEAKER_04 38:00

Yes, yeah, that's possible. I'm with I'm just gonna say I'm with Britney on this. I can see it. Okay, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:07

Ah, I have Bender. Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_03 38:12

Oh, you're great. The scale of what happened would only become clear in the days that followed. The morning after Dr. York's body was discovered, eight more bodies were unearthed from seven of nine suspected burial sites. Your next photo is the bender house the day after the gravedigging began.

SPEAKER_04 38:33

So excited for this. That is dodgy, isn't it? It's a tiny cabin. It's like we would we would call that a shed nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

You can see how they were managing to lift it off the foundations.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

Yeah, so that's why like back when I said it, I was like, trust me, it does make sense, like when you see the picture.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

And it makes sense that a couple of benders could throw that up in a couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_03 38:51

Yeah, not even. Yeah. Ha ha. Benjamin Brown's body was discovered almost entirely naked, with a red and white silk handkerchief still tied around his neck, and a silver ring on the pinky finger of his right hand. From the condition of his remains, it was believed he had been buried for about six months.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

So we know either they're really bad robbers or they weren't doing it for money.

SPEAKER_04 39:15

They weren't no. This is and it is at his naked alarm bells.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Where was the ring?

SPEAKER_04 39:20

On his hand or his right hand.

SPEAKER_03 39:24

Listen, listen, Linda. Where where do you think it was?

SPEAKER_01 39:31

I had no idea.

SPEAKER_03 39:32

WF McCrady was found buried face down, his throat cut and head smashed in. On his arm, written in India ink. I looked up what that was. It was just like a ink? Yeah, but I didn't know. I I had never heard of it. I don't actually know if it is from India. Okay. So there was a clear tattoo. I find this very funny. It said his name. The tattoo says W. F. McCrady, born 1843. He had that tattooed on himself. What? Love it. And then there was an American flag underneath underneath. I think I know why, and I will explain. So an American flag, and then it said 123 Illinois Infantry Company D. This was right after the American Civil War.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Okay, so it was like dog tags. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:12

I think that's what it was. So I think if he died in battle that they would know who he was. Okay, that context was key, wasn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

I kind of want to get that tattoo, Christopher. Born blah blah.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

Another man was found shortly thereafter, though he could not be identified. Investigators believed he may have been among the earliest victims. The body of H. F. Mackenzie was then uncovered. He had come to Kansas seeking land and was last seen leaving the home of J. H. Speary, six miles north of the Bender House, in early November 1871. He was described as strong and athletic, and his wounds suggested he had fought back before being killed.

SPEAKER_04 40:55

That may take out the bonk on the head and the cutthroat, but then I mean, I guess not every bonk is going to immediately render unconscious. True.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

It's the bonk and cut combo, isn't it? You rely on both.

SPEAKER_04 41:07

Yeah. I feel like it's too late, but we should have called the podcast that. I have the perfect name for it. Oh, I mean the entire podcast.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

The bonk and cut combo.

unknown 41:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 41:20

Okay. So sorry. Sorry, deep breath. I'm laughing. Yeah. Also Among the Dead were George Lancourt and his daughter.

SPEAKER_04 41:27

God, so they even floofed the daughter. Because I didn't know if they like, I don't know, these kind of series.

SPEAKER_01 41:35

Well, you thought they were like radical feminists just bumping them in.

SPEAKER_04 41:38

I don't know. Yeah. Or something. I don't know. Oh, like, I mean, right. If you I don't know, I just it's just an extra farm hand, isn't it? I was thinking for the kid. Because you could just take it in and like raise it. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Oh, I see, right.

SPEAKER_04 41:53

That's what I was thinking, yeah. Anyway, never mind.

SPEAKER_03 41:56

Described by one account as the offerings to the bloody god worshipped by these horrible fiends. Marianne was placed at George's feet with no indication of how she died, leading to speculation that she was buried alive.

SPEAKER_00 42:11

Ooh, damn.

SPEAKER_03 42:13

Estimates would later suggest that the Benders had killed at least a dozen travelers, perhaps as many as twenty.

unknown 42:20

Why?

SPEAKER_03 42:21

So your next photo are your next photo is a sketch showing the Bender house, the orchard, and the finding of York's body. I think you have four images now. So you have one that says three sketches, and then a sepia one. It's graves that were discovered on the property, and York, his is on the far right. And I believe is actually written in the photo.

SPEAKER_01 42:45

I see. So it was about what 20 meters from the house, 20, 30 meters?

SPEAKER_03 42:49

It was less than 200 yards. It's just a really small house. Like this was yeah. The third photo um you can see highlighted. I didn't do that wherever I got this from, did it? But it's seven graves that were found on the property. They're stupid.

SPEAKER_04 43:05

They have all of that land and very next to the whole there.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

That's convenient, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 43:11

Lazy serial killers. That's so unless well, I was gonna say, unless they want to retrieve them for some reason, or unless they like to be close to them for some reason. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

Well, if she's trying to do a seance with a ghost, maybe their body needs to be clothed.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

That's I'm sorry. That was literally the way I was going. I was wondering if like these people are so crazy that she genuinely thinks that she has clairvoyant abilities, so is trying to practice with I love that theory.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

I mean, that's someone should tell her that you can talk to people while they're alive.

SPEAKER_04 43:42

Yeah. Yeah. But imagine being like, I need to hone in on my skill. I need to kill people. Kill people and bury them right here so that they're right here, so I can practice can communicating with them.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

I can see that being the reason. I like that theory.

SPEAKER_03 43:57

I really like that. But you'll have to wait. Okay. Stay tuned. So your fourth photo is somebody standing in a pit. That was the cellar under the trapdoor because the house has now been moved. So you can kind of see comparison to that person standing there.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

So it's not very big at all.

SPEAKER_03 44:12

It's more like a shoot into the ground. Oh yes. No, remember there was like thousands of people that had gathered at the house over the course of the next few days and weeks. The crowd's anger quickly turned towards those suspected of having any connection to the family. A German man named Brockman, said to be a friend or associate of the family, quickly drew suspicion at the scene. Believing he knew something of the murders, the crowd seized him and hanged him from a beam inside the house, inside the cabin, until he lost consciousness. He was cut down, revived, and hanged a second and then a third time. Despite this brutal treatment, Brockman never confessed.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 44:53

After the third hanging, he was released, staggering away as one who was drunken or deranged, according to one account.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Or maybe brain damaged.

SPEAKER_04 45:02

Yeah. I'm trying to so this is a big shed that they're living in. Yeah. They're burying the bodies less than 200 yards or feet, did you say?

SPEAKER_03 45:12

Yards.

SPEAKER_04 45:13

They're burying the bodies less than 200 yards from the house. Why do they need a pit in the house? What are they doing that for? To me, this uh may back up my theory a little bit. If she wants to be super close to the person she's just killed for like at least 24 hours or something to establish a deep connection. Maybe. Because otherwise I just can't think of if you are if you know you're gonna bury it like in your backyard, why go to the bother of digging a pit inside your little shed to hold it in for any length of time.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

Yeah. Unless it's some some way of facilitating the bonking. Did they do they push a chair into the pit and then because it was under the bed, wasn't it? Yeah. I was thinking they'd maybe push a chair into the into the pit and then they're upside down, disorientated, whack them on the head. No.

SPEAKER_04 46:10

Oh god, you meant bonking on the head.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

I I thought you meant No, not for actual physical bonking, no.

unknown 46:15

I've got to be.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

No, we're still bonking on the head.

SPEAKER_04 46:17

I was thinking, what does a chair? How is a chair gonna facilitate the bonking?

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Hey, well we can be inventive, you know.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

To facil No, that wouldn't it wouldn't facilitate the murder.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

Well, I was just thinking, imagine they're sitting down for dinner, they push the back legs of the chair, or sit them close to the trapdoor, push the back legs into the chair, the chair topples backwards, into the pit, and then you bonk them. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 46:41

Interesting theory, Chris. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also because there's so much blood in that pit, it would suggest that maybe these people with their throat cut are actually bleeding out in this pit.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 46:54

Maybe.

SPEAKER_04 46:55

So yeah, maybe maybe the throat cutting is happening in the pit.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

Do we know?

SPEAKER_03 47:00

Yes, we do know. Fuck off. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

Fuck off. It's so polite on this podcast.

SPEAKER_03 47:07

In total, twelve men of bad repute in general were arrested. All have been involved in handling the victim's stolen goods with a member of the vigilance committee implicated in forging a letter to a victim's wife, falsely claiming he had arrived safely in Illinois. Wow. I genuinely I'm not gonna lie, I don't know if I believe this. I saw this in some newspapers, and I it wasn't in others. I don't know how true this is. It would change everything. It would, but that's all we know.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

Because I was assuming these mentalists were just like acting on their own, but it sounds like there's a whole network of fences under them.

SPEAKER_04 47:46

Who knows? But you don't feel like this is enough of a source.

SPEAKER_03 47:52

No, I I the vigilance committee is gonna come back. I'll tell you that now. They're gonna come back later.

SPEAKER_04 47:57

What is that?

SPEAKER_03 47:58

It's basically like not policemen, but it's like uh like a neighborhood watch.

SPEAKER_04 48:03

Right.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

Okay, vigilance like people who just go out and it's like citizens arrest kind of like vigils. No, no, no, connected to the spooky stuff. No, no, no, right.

SPEAKER_04 48:13

These are just like you've done a bad thing.

SPEAKER_03 48:15

Busy bodies were gonna arrest you.

SPEAKER_04 48:17

Yeah, jobsworths.

SPEAKER_03 48:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:19

So does anybody say in any of those sources how they knew that they were connected to these victims? Like, did did were they found with their stuff on their person? Nothing.

SPEAKER_02 48:30

Nothing.

SPEAKER_04 48:30

So where if and if it's not true, where could that rumor have come from?

SPEAKER_03 48:34

Newspapers. Unfortunately, as we've seen in so many cases, you can't trust the newspapers at this time because they will make things up, people will write things in and they won't fact check and they'll just include it. So I wanted to throw that in there, A, to show you that you know, we can't trust newspapers, and B, I don't know if I believe it. It could have been true. I mean, obviously the men were arrested, yes, but we need to see proper court records to confirm it. Yeah, and you're not gonna have that in Kansas in the 1870s in the middle of nowhere. Maybe if you were in Kansas City, yes, but not like in the boonies. Like so take from that what you will.

SPEAKER_04 49:12

Did these sources even say the names of these people? No. Yeah, okay. But here's the thing as well.

SPEAKER_03 49:18

Disclaimer, there are thousands of newspapers. I only read what I could in two weeks.

SPEAKER_04 49:23

Which is like 500. I try my best. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 49:27

So if it is in some random off-the-wall small little two-sentence article somewhere, I didn't see it.

SPEAKER_04 49:34

How many newspapers reported this?

SPEAKER_03 49:37

Was it the entire country? I didn't even get to worldwide. The bit about the the I I don't know. It was quite a it was enough that I made note of it, but I would have to go back in my records and that would change everything. Yeah. But I I don't believe it either. I don't believe it. I I believe they were arrested. I don't believe they could have handled the victim's stolen goods because you'll find out later why. Brockman would be arrested again 23 years later for the rape and murder of his 18-year-old daughter.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_03 50:11

And that's the last we ever hear of Brockman.

SPEAKER_04 50:13

That's the guy that was hung in three turns hanging. I cannot deal with that wage. I thought you were gonna say you can't deal with him because I'm the kid. No, I know.

SPEAKER_03 50:22

I I'm appreciative of You know, I purposely wrote hanged because I knew. I can't I never remember. Ah, don't worry about it. Inside the house, more unsettling details emerged. An old Bible contained cryptic entries. Well, some are cryptic, some are normal, like John Bender, born July 1848.

SPEAKER_00 50:44

What could he have meant by that?

SPEAKER_03 50:46

19th of January. Chris Rhode, this is the thing I asked you to look up. In in Dutch. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

Oh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:53

I don't even know how to read this. Okay. 19th of January is a slag day. Slag spelled S L A G H. It's not an English word. In Dutch, it means battle, funny enough.

SPEAKER_01 51:08

Battle day.

SPEAKER_03 51:09

Nineteenth of January is a battle day. Well, they might be Dutch.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

Or Dutch in German are quite.

SPEAKER_03 51:15

Do we know what it is in German? The schlag. It didn't mean anything in German. We looked it up.

SPEAKER_01 51:21

Slag with an H is not a German word, but it could be like Schlag, which is a like to hit something, or maybe it's battle as well. I don't know. Schlacht. Not sure.

SPEAKER_03 51:30

Could you tell me those dates again? John Bender, born July 1848. 19th of January is a slag day. 14th of July, fine day. 22nd of January 1873, hell went off.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Hell went off. Oh my god. Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 51:53

3rd of February, Ella went away. 6th of October, our Henry was born in Havre. He died 4th of December, 1860. Their meaning was never fully understood.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

Was I mean, was one of the people called Ella? Ella left.

SPEAKER_03 52:10

I looked up John Bender born in 1848. I looked up a Henry Bender born in 1860. I did everything no record. I couldn't find a a single thing.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

See, my pet theory now is that these people aren't even related and they just changed their name to Bender because there was some sort of let's be a family, let's be a weird family together.

SPEAKER_04 52:29

Can I just say as well? No, they don't.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

And if the the younger woman is being described as fair and beautiful, etc. etc. And then the elder woman is like as ugly as the hag and Macbeth.

SPEAKER_03 52:45

Mm-hmm. Then some other theories is that there's John and Kate, elder, and then they had John Jr. and he married a Kate. Funny enough, he married someone with the same name as his mother, but Kate is a was an extremely common name back then. Another theory is that the elder John and Kate had a daughter, Kate, and married a John, either with the same surname or he ha took her surname, which that's didn't really happen then.

SPEAKER_04 53:13

It's a theory, I need to say it, but I don't I don't think I don't think the two siblings were related. Okay. But but I think that they may have told people they were. Potentially.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

Oh, and you think Kate was preaching yes, incest is good because she was excused for why she was fucking her supposed brother. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 53:32

That could be why. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

Okay, I can buy that.

SPEAKER_04 53:35

I just feel like if they were all related in a normal nuclear family way, there wouldn't be all this like weirdness around it. Right? Why is there all of this discourse about how they may not have been and blah blah blah? It's like that where there's smoke, there's fire. There's something off there. There's something they were.

SPEAKER_03 53:52

Yeah. But we just don't know what.

SPEAKER_04 53:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:54

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 53:55

Unless. Go for it. What if this was just so you've got John and Kate the Elders? They have their daughter Kate. Uh-huh. And then they start their whole serial killer thing somewhere else. And then one guy comes to the house who Kate's like, hold on.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

He's some fine piece of ass. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:16

And then they say, if you want to stay alive, you're going to marry my daughter, and you're going to take our name on, and you are going to pretend to be siblings. You're going to change your identity.

SPEAKER_03 54:27

I hadn't thought about that.

SPEAKER_04 54:28

Because she fancies you and our daughter is gifted, so she gets everything she wants. Yeah, I well.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

I was going to say, well, why would you go along with that? You just escaped the first chance you got. But if she's fit, then if you're a half-wit, you're probably like, oh yeah. Okay. Oh my god. Well, he was a half-wit. He was disposed of it.

SPEAKER_03 54:50

If Scar's a half-wit and laughing aimlessly, like I don't know about that.

SPEAKER_04 54:56

I just don't know what I loved it personally.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

If Jaco is telling me I'm gonna get cancelled.

unknown 55:04

That was my normal voice.

SPEAKER_04 55:07

No, it wasn't. It was your slide.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

Oh, I see. Yes, right. I'm with you. Yeah. Just ignore that, listeners.

SPEAKER_04 55:18

Oh my god. Okay, well, what I'm loving about this is that the possibilities are endless. Literally endless. This is the best way to the end. Oh my god, okay.

SPEAKER_03 55:27

Newspapers describe the cabin as nothing less than a human slaughter pen. Did I just read that? No. Okay, sorry. I had in my head I did. It was divided into two spaces by a canvas wagon cover. The back room served as the family's living quarters, while the other operated as a combined store, dining area, and lodge. And so the trap is in the front bit. However, instead of a place of refuge and rest for the weary, it was instead a house of horrors where those seeking comfort only found violence and death. So now your next photo is is a bit blurry-ish. It was uh cropped from a newspaper, so that's just kind of an outline of what the house looked like. So it's like a little floor plan.

SPEAKER_01 56:13

Do you have the So this is why I always go for Airbnbs that they're owning closed units. Because you don't you don't want to have a cloth partition between you and some murderers.

SPEAKER_03 56:21

No. Guests were given a seat of honor at the table, positioned directly over the trapdoor.

SPEAKER_01 56:27

Or what did I say?

SPEAKER_03 56:29

With the victims seated and their back to the curtain, Kate would distract them, often speaking about her spiritualist beliefs. At the right moment, one of the men would step from behind the partition and strike them in the skull with a hammer. One of the women would then cut the victim's throat, and the body would drop would be dropped through the trapdoor into the cellar beneath the house. Once there, the victim would be stripped of their belongings and later buried somewhere on the property, most often in the orchard. There's another picture of the house as well. Sorry, how do we know this?

SPEAKER_04 57:02

I was just about to ask that in a less polite way. I was just about to say, how the fuck do we know this?

SPEAKER_03 57:09

Yes. Give me two paragraphs. The family sold the stolen goods, horses, saddles, and clothing. While some victims carried significant money, like well, we saw the silver ring on Benjamin Brown's finger. Others had very little, leading to speculation that the killings were not motivated by robbery alone. But unfortunately, we will never know what that motivated was. I solved it, didn't I? I think you did. Yeah. Much of what we know about the Bender's killings comes from survivors like William Pickering.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Oh my god. I didn't realize there were survivors.

SPEAKER_03 57:43

This is just one story, but there were quite a few people who stumbled upon it and yeah. How the fuck do you survive? What happened? He later described an immediate unease upon entering the house, noticing dark stains on the canvas partition, and growing suspicious of the seat he was urged to sit in.

SPEAKER_04 58:02

Oh my god, yeah. Oh yeah, just sit there. Sit on that one, that one right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:07

More with a trapdoor under it.

SPEAKER_03 58:08

The smells of death. Trusting his instincts, he refused. Kate Jr. reportedly became agitated and threatened him with a knife, prompting Pickering to leave at once.

SPEAKER_04 58:21

Kate Jr. became agitated. They were doing this for her agenda.

SPEAKER_03 58:27

Uh, maybe, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:28

She's the one that became agitated. She wants them to die.

SPEAKER_01 58:31

So do you think she's the mastermind? The two older ones are just like, yeah, putting up with her, or like, yeah, yes, honey, yes, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:37

And then I mean, I don't know the dynamic. But she could have just convinced them that she needed this. They could have all come up to with it together. They I don't know, but just yeah. Yeah. Obviously, I'm just look I'm cherry-picking for things that validate my theory of it. Absolutely. I think so. I can open I don't have tunnel vision. I remain open-minded.

SPEAKER_03 59:04

There was another story about a woman, a neighbor. Now, remind, I mean, I I say neighbor, but the Benders had 160 acres. So this is a very far away neighbor. She came to the Bender house because I I don't know, she was looking for something like milk, you know, she just needed something to finish cooking. And essentially they like chased her off the property. There was another man, I think it was a Catholic priest. I didn't really read his story, but he came forward that he had a weird interaction with them when he went inside their house. So, yes, there was more survivors than what I'm saying. Not killing priests. I I don't know if he just happened to get away. I don't know the details, but his story is is considered kind of unreliable because he came out with it. I think it was like a weird time. You're gonna have to look that up. I don't really know. But um, when he came out with the story, people are like, Are you really is that true? Or I don't know, but it's on the Wikipedia. And then just as suddenly as the killings began, the family vanished. A manhunt was immediately launched, but the Benders disappeared without a trace. It's thought that both John Benders had attended the meeting back in April, where it was decided to search every house in the area. Oh they left. It's not confirmed, but it is that's a theory that they happened to attend the meeting. And they were like, we gotta get out of here.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:21

Of course they did. So yeah, the sorry, no, no. So so these bullets are this is staged.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:27

I think that the bullets were maybe when men, especially, because they would be carrying the guns at the time, when they were sat at the table, maybe they had an instinct something was happening. Potentially there were scenarios where they fought back and they had a gun and they went to shoot at the benders, and there was bullet holes in the house. And I think this was evidence of people fighting back.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:47

Fuck off.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

Wild, crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:50

But then what are the odds?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

None of them managed to do anything. Maybe if you've had your throat cut, you're missed every single time.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:58

Maybe you're hit over the head, it's not hard enough to knock you out. You say something's happening, you take out your gun, you go to shoot, but you're you're you're dazed, you don't really know what's going on, you wildly miss, and then they cut your throat.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:08

And to be fair, we actually don't know it didn't hit one of them once.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:11

Yeah, no, you're right. We don't know. Oh my god. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:15

That's such I never would have thought of that. That is so fucking dark.

unknown 1:01:21

Yeah. And I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:24

I can't think of any other reason they'd be there though, because if they're leaving, obviously they know people are gonna find the bodies. There's no point to make it look staged.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:31

I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

Alright. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:34

Weird. Now, what I can't explain they didn't.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:37

What Britney's saying is they didn't.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:39

So you think they there is a chance they could have staged the bullet holes? Well, not now after Britney's theory.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:44

I I think I'm with Britney on that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:46

But something, Chris, you said earlier is the trapdoor was underneath the bed when it was found, but that wouldn't explain. They must have moved the bed to be over the trapdoor, which I don't understand.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:56

Just a feeble attempt at hiding it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:57

And hiding it, I guess, because if you look at the layout, the trapdoor is not like against a wall where a bed might be. It's literally in the middle of the floor. Yeah. Why would there be a bed in the middle of the floor?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:08

I think it is just a feeble attempt. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And as if it wasn't even the search that drew them to the house anyway. It was the fact that they left their animals unattended and it was very quiet. Yes. So like Do something with your cows. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:25

Do you think if they just hadn't panicked and run away, we'd they'd never found the bodies? Or do you think they'd have eventually realized, oh, we should probably look at it.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:32

They'd have done that search, wouldn't they? I think they would have eventually done it. But I think with let's say they removed the animals, it definitely would have been a few more weeks or a few more months down the road than what when they actually did it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:44

Whatever they heard at that meeting sent them on a panic. It did. Because it wasn't just the fact that the people who wanted to get the warrant were gonna like go and apply for a warrant, and then in a couple of days, maybe then they they thought that that search was imminent. They were like, this is gonna happen tomorrow. They literally went home from that meeting, packed, went home. Yeah, uh, sorry, and and left. So, because I'm like, why you've got 160 acres? Why are you not just moving those bodies? But then, yeah, so I think they were just they literally went home. They were like, ladies, we're out of here.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:19

We gotta go.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:20

Yeah, obviously the benders went missing and were never found.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:24

I don't know. I think you're gonna have to wait. So that's the end of part one of the bloody benders. Tune in next time for part two to see what happens.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:34

Love it. Tune it in next week for a real good tale.