Great American Crime Stories Page 4

  THE SCENE THURSDAY

  was too horrible to give even a faint description of. Seven bodies in various stage of decomposition were lying on the ground by the side of their open graves, their skulls broken in and their throats cut from ear to ear, except the girl, eighteen mouths old, who must have been strangled or else thrown into her grave alive. She was in full dress, as her grandmother had dressed her that morning. She was in the bottom of the grave and her father lying upon her. The child’s body showed no

  MARKS OF VIOLENCE.

  The manner in which they accomplished these terrible deeds was this: on the house was posted the sign “groceries,” but they kept nothing but some wines. This sign called in their victims. In the floor near the store was a trap door, two feet square, which opens into a rude hole in the ground, seven feet deep, six feet wide at the top, and three feet at the bottom. The earth outside of the house does not show any sign of excavation. In this horrible hole were plunged the unfortunate victims whom they

  MURDERED IN DAYLIGHT.

  The hammers used for breaking the skulls were such as are used by stone-breakers on our streets, and the handles are around twenty inches long. Upon examination it was found that the skulls were all broken at the back and right side of the head, showing that the desperate deeds have been done by a right handed man.

  The bodies have all been identified but two. The Bender family have lived at this place for more than two years, yet all

  THE BODIES FOUND

  have been killed within the last nine months, and the skill shown in this terrible work and the neatness with which all traces of their crimes were blotted out, is the best evidence that their bloody work did not commence so recently. Several hundred persons were at the scene of horror yesterday, and the excitement is intense. Every one is confident that half is not yet unearthed.

  THE WORK OF SEARCHING

  the premises still goes on, and what may be developed none can tell, but the people are prepared for anything. In an old Bible which was found in the house. and on the family record page, was written in German the following memoranda: “big slaughter day, Jan, eighth (8.)” and another which read: “hell departed.” These were interpreted by a German citizen who was present yesterday.

  A CATHOLIC PRAYER BOOK

  was also found in the house, which contained the following, written in German: “Johanna Bender, born July 30, 1848. John Gerhardt came to America July 1, 18—.”

  T. STRANGE, ESQ.

  the deputy prosecuting attorney of Labette county, appeared on the ground at the beginning of the search, and for some time insisted on all these roles of “red tape,” and did not want anything done until the coroner and other officials came. His desires were overruled very decidedly, and speedily the examination proceeded.

  Great excitement prevails all over the country, and a strong effort is being made to discover this family of murderers.

  SECOND DISPATCH.

  Cherryville, May 8, 10 p.m. Parties just arrived from Parsons report that some persons supposed to be implicated have been arrested at that place; and there is a rumor that scours are on the trail of the Bender family, and only twenty four hours behind them, they being en route to Texas.

  Numbers of people have been visiting the grounds from motives of curiosity.

  ANOTHER RUMOR

  reports a gang of horse thieves in the vicinity of the human slaughter-house, who are spreading rumors to throw the detectives off the track.

  LATER FROM THE KANSAS HORROR.

  Parsons, Kas., May 12. Col. Bondenot, who has just returned from the scene of the Bender murders, reports that three more graves were discovered yesterday. Over 3,000 people were on the ground, and a special train has just arrived with seven cars filled with people; that there was intense excitement all over the country and a firm determination to ferret out the parties engaged in the murders. It is understood that a large reward will be offered by the county, and state, for the arrest of the assassins. Nearly all the bodies of the dead are indecently mutilated, and it is considered certain that the little girl was thrown alive into the grave of her father, as no marks of violence can be found on the body.

  *****

  THE DEVIL’S KITCHEN

  The Tricks of the Professed Mistress of His Satanic Majesty—Fiendish Torture—An Invitation to a Supper of Double Edged Daggers—the Pursuit of the Human Butchers—How Armed Men were Fooled by a Woman—A Sunday Scene at the Graves.

  The foul and dreadful series of murders lately brought to light in Labette county, Kansas, continues to be the all-absorbing topic of speculation and conversation throughout the State, and to excite wonder and amazed horror all over the nation.

  Every item or circumstance connected with the horrid butchery is diligently sought after, and ears made credulous by the fearfully true story of the damnable deeds of the Bender family, are made to drink in rumors and stories which have their foundation only in the imagination, which vainly labors to invent something more strange and horrid than the reality. The Times has already published such fall and generally accurate account of the discovery of the affair, and the subsequent movements of the populace, officers and criminals, that little remains to be added, but the following facts, gleamed by the Times’s special reporter, who returned from “Hell’s Half Acre”—as the Bender garden will hereafter be known—yesterday, will be read with

  universal interest.

  THE DEVIL’S KITCHEN,

  otherwise the Bender house, is a small, rude frame shanty, without lath or plaster or intervening substance between its floor and the rafters of the pointed roof. In size it is 16x24 feet. Small uprights 2x4 inches are set to mark the house into two compartments, but no wall had ever been made other than a white cotton cloth hung in the rear apartment and against these uprights. The front apartment had in a counter, over which the butchers once pretended to sell groceries. In the rear room was a rude bed, a table, a stove and three chairs.

  The table, to which the guests of the fiends were seated, was placed directly over the trap door, so that the guest’s back was to and against the white curtain. In this position it was an easy thing for the male villains in the front apartment to strike the form clearly lined and resting against the white cloth, and when the blows of the sledge and hammer had knocked the victim, with a crushed and broken skull, senseless and helpless to the floor, for the female fiends in the back room to cut their throat. The execution was as simple as it was dreadful, but, though it would seem resistance to such well planned murder of the trusting and unsuspecting was impossible, the walls gave silent evidence that some of the murdered ones had not been sent to their doom without an effort to defend their lives. No less than a dozen bullet holes in the sides and roof of the house attest that armed men, when struck down so relentlessly, had attempted to shoot their murderers, but, unfortunately, the aims had been wild, and the murderers are reserved for the hempen halter.

  THE SITUATION.

  This building is located just on the rising edge of a beautiful narrow valley, circled on the south, east and west by a range of mounds or hills, fronting to the north in the mouth of the valley. The hills are distant from the house from a half mile to a mile, the closest being on the south, to the rear. The house fronted to the road just in the bend, sitting back about its own length from the roadway. From this point of the road can be had a full view of everything for a half mile in every direction, but not another house is within sight. It is about seven miles from Cherryvale, ten miles from Thayer, eight from Ladore, and two from Morehead, and just in the northwest corner of Labette county.

  WHERE THE MURDERED NOW SLEEP.

  With the exception of Dr. York and Henry F. McKenzie, G. W. Longcor and daughter, whose families took charge of their remains and buried them at Independence, the bodies of those found in the garden graves were quietly taken by silent men, who knew them not, yet longed f
or vengeance on their assassins, to the base of a high mound, about a mile to the southeast of the devil’s kitchen, and there a second time returned to the earth to sleep until the final resurrection.

  WHO THEY ARE.

  The first of the eight bodies discovered was Dr. York, of Independence.

  GEORGE W. LONGCOR AND DAUGHTER.

  Mr. Longcor was a neighbor of Dr. York’s, from whom be had purchased a team just before he started for Iowa, last December. He and his infant child were buried in one grave. He, as all the other men, had the back of the skull crushed in and broken and his throat cut, and the body stripped of nearly all its clothing. The child was placed at the father’s feet, without a bruise or mark of violence, and with all its clothes on, even the hood and mittens, and many judge that the infant had been buried alive.

  L. G. BROWN

  was from Cedarvale, Howard county. He had recently traded horses near Ladore, and was supposed to have had about $60 with him. He was recognized by a silver ring on his finger, which was identified by the friend Johnson, with whom he had traded horses.

  W. F. MCROTTY

  lived near Cedarvale. He was en route to Independence to contest a land claim. One report says he had a large sum of money on his person, and another, judged to be more reliable, that he had but a small sum.

  HENRY F. MCKENZIE

  was from Hamilton county, Indiana, and was on his road to locate at Independence, where his sister, Mrs. J. Thompson, resides. He had but little money and was on foot, and had been missing since December last.

  PETER BOYLE

  resided in Howard county. His body was so mutilated as to be hardly recognizable, but his poor widow identified him by his peculiar shirt, which her own hands had made for him. He had started on foot for Osage Mission sometime last December.

  THE UNRECOGNIZED.

  The only one of the bodies not identified is supposed, and very reasonably, to be that of Jack Bogart, who started for Illinois, on horseback, about a year ago. The horse he rode has been found in the hands of a responsible man, who purchased him from one of the suspected confederates. This completes the list of those yet discovered on the grounds.

  PISTOLS AND KNIVES FOR A SUPPER.

  One of the most marvelous stories ever heard, but which is vouched for by reliable men, is the following: One evening about three months ago, a poor woman, footsore and weary, traveling to Independence, without money, stopped at the Bender den and asked for some supper and for privilege of resting awhile. She was invited in, and being nearly exhausted, she took her shoes and scanty wrappings off and laid down on the bed in the back room. She soon fell into a troubled doze, from which she was awakened by the touch of the old hag of the den, who, pointing to an array of pistols and double edged knives, of various sizes, lying on the table, said in the spirit of hellish malignity: “There, your supper is ready.” The woman was motionless and breathless with terror, and as she sank back on the bed, the devil dame picked up the knives one by one and drew her finger along the sharpened blades at the same time glancing fiendishly at her intended victim.

  How long this terror lasted the woman could not tell, but at last she, in the very desperation of fear, arose as though not alarmed, and made a private excuse for going out. She was permitted to do so, and moving around to the shelter of the stable, barefooted and scarce half clad, she darted off on the wings of fear, and ran for two miles to the house of one who protected her and gave her shelter. As she was running away, she turned frequently to see if she was pursued, but no one followed her, though she saw the light from the open doorway several times, as though the devils inside were awaiting her return. Even this story seems not to have aroused more than the before existing suspicion that the Benders were not exactly the right kind of people.

  A BURGLING BUSINESS.

  Although for the past three years this section has been infested with horse thieves and murderers, and this known to every one about the country, it is probable the same state of affairs might have continued for an indefinite period, had not the murder of Dr. York, man of family, friends and reputation, led to the exposure. Men have been missed and bodies found of murdered men for three years past, and “vigilance committees” have hunted and driven some men from the country; but it would now seem as though the leaders of these “regulators” were themselves the villains, and honest men had been falsely and foully suspected and driven from their homes. Known villains have for that time been sent to the penitentiary, only to be pardoned out out by governors.

  And even the band of seventy-five armed and honest men who scoured the country in search of Dr. York, when it was learned he was missing, seem to have had very little judgment or discretion.

  On the 28th of March last, Col. York and Mr. Johnson visited the Bender house to which place they bad tracked Dr. York, and endeavored to coax some information from them, but they would tell nothing. On the 3d of April this armed band visited the house with the sole object of finding the murderers of Dr. York, yet they did not notice the bullet holes in the house, and allowed themselves to be fooled by an assumed stupidity which was the disguise of most hellish cunning. The old hag sat mum and gloomy, pretending she could not understand or speak English; old Bender said nothing; Kate, she of the evil eye, denied all knowledge of the lost, and the younger male villain fooled them with a well made up story. He said that at about the time they say Dr. York was missed, he, Bender,

  HAD BEEN SHOT AT

  in a lonesome place near Drum creek, one evening, and it must have been by those who killed the Doctor. He described the place minutely, and then took them to it, and it was found as he said, and they half believed his story, and returned with him. Col. York repeated the story given above, of the supper of pistols and knives offered to the lone woman, when the old hag soon found her sense of the English language improved. She understood all that had been said, and flew into a violent passion. She denied the story of the supper, and said that that was a bad and wicked woman, whom she would kill if ever she came near them again; that the woman was a witch, and had bewitched Kate’s coffee; and then she ordered the whole band away. While going and coming from the creek, John told Col. York that his sister Kate could do anything, that she could control the devil, and that the devil did her bidding. When they returned to the house, Col. York tried to induce this wonderful mistress of the devil to reveal where the body of his brother was. She positively refused her satanic aid at this time, giving as her reason therefor that she could not do so in the day time, and while there were so many men and so much noise about.

  AN INVITATION.

  The pretended sorceress and real fiend then told Col. York privately that if he would come the next night, Friday—when best she worked her spells—and bring only one man with him, she would take him to the grave of his murdered brother. Had the Colonel been so foolish as to believe the mysterious power of the creature, there is no doubt she would have proved her promise good. The whole band then left the house. They visited the house of Roach and Smith and Harness, at Ladore, and made many threats, but accomplished nothing. Their intent was good, but they lacked an experienced detective for a leader. So strong was their conviction, however, of the guilt of the Roachesand of the Benders, that they would have hung them then had it not been for the persuasion of Col. York and a few others, who were determined that none but the known guilty should suffer. Of course this alarmed the Benders, and they fled. How, has been published in the Times.

  MORE CARELESSNESS

  It seems strange that no watch was put on the suspected Benders, and still more strange that they should have been gone three weeks before any knew of it. When they went to Thayer they left their team and wagon and dog on the public street of the town. On the street the team and wagon remained for two days without a claimant, when they were taken charge of by a livery firm there—Bear & Wheeler. No notice, other than an item in the Head Light, the local journal,
was given of the finding of the team, and no description of the horses published, though they were peculiarly and similarly marked. Had such description been given it must have led to the speedy pursuit of the fleeing criminals. It is not suspected that there was any guilt in this neglect, but only carelessness.

  THERE MUST BE A GANG.

  No doubt is entertained that the Benders have not been alone in their damnable villainy. They must have had confederates to dispose of the stock and clothes of his murdered men, and suspicion has already pointed to a number of men, living throughout that section, in different directions, and to none with more evidence of justice than one

  MIT CHERRY.

  This fellow lives about three miles south of Parsons, and when Col. York was making search for his brother, he tried to induce the Colonel to employ him as a detective. Luckily the Colonel would have nothing to do with him. This man, it is said by two men who are generally credited, at different places and times, and separately, told them that he was a member of a band of “regulators” in the County, and that when they found a criminal they never troubled him with the law, or put the County to any expense about him; that the baud always knew their own work when they saw it, for every man they put out of the way they laid with his throat cut, his left arm across his breast, and his right by his side.

  In such condition and position were found nearly all the Bender victims. As a further evidence against this fellow, it is known that soon after McCrotty’s disappearance was known, and when there was about to be some action taken to look for him, he pretended to have a letter from McCrotty, telling of his safe arrival in Illinois, at his intended destination.

  The other suspected parties who have been arrested are men of bad repute in general, and believed for some time to be horse thieves, if nothing worse. On Sunday, Sheriff Stone brought into Independence, under arrest, Addison Roach, of Ladore, and Wm. Buxton, a son-in-law of the elder Roach, both found near Cedarvale. This makes the number under arrest now on suspicion, so far as known, twelve. The names of the others have been published in the Times.