Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1873-05-23
The Kansas Horror.

AsO AAssAAS@o A4OA3VEs
A Kansas correspondent of the
Inter Ocean, the man who dis
covered the trap-door though which
the Blenders threw their victims to
the excavation under the house.
gives the following further particu-
lars of the manner in which the
murders were discovered.
During the past year there have
been twelve or thirteen men miss.
ing between Fort Scott and hide
pendence, but no one knew where
they went. When DIR. York was
missed his friends made search
for him. They started from indie
pendence on the I'd day of April to
hunt him. He left Fort Scott
March 10th to come to Independent
ce. In this search his friends went
as far as Ladore, in Labette county,
stayed there over night, and as they
were returning they stopped at the
Bender house and made some in
quiries. Colonel York, the brother
of the murdered man, talked with
the girl, who pretended to be n
spiritualist. He wanted her to sit
and see if she could tell where his
brother was. She declined to do so
at that time, (Thursday) but if he
would come back Friday night she
would tell him where his brother
was. Colonel York had no faith in
her, and consequently did not go.
1t seems that the family became
frightened on account Of this visit
and the apparent interest taken in
DR.. York, and left home that night;
but it was q fortnight before it
became generally known that they
had left the neighborhood.
Their nearest neighbors lived
half mile east of them where two
young men worked, but their work
was in another direction, so that
they seldom passed the Bender
house. But the Saturday after the
family left one of the young men
went that way and saw the windows
blinded and the wagon gone. He
thought nothing Of it, but about two
weeks after they were gone another
man who lived over mile from
the house went there to tell them to
keep theirR cows from his wheat.
They were not at home, so he went
and asked the young man who had
been there if he knew where they
were. The young man then re-
membered about passing there, and
thinking that it looked as though
they were gone. SO he went to see,
and he found calf in a pen tied by
the neck and dead, and a hog in a
pen SO poor from starvation that it
could hardly walk. The next day,
Friday, May 2, the young man came
to my house, which is four and a
half miles from the place, and in
formed me of what he had seen and
done. The next day Saturday l
induced two of my nelghbors to 60
with me, and we went to the house
and found it locked up, and the
windows well blinded. We sent
out word, and on Sunday twenty
men gathered there. There was an
outside cellar door, and / went in
there and found trap-door leading
up tn rough the floor. | went up
and opened the door above, and
found everything about the house
as they had kept it when there.
They kept a few groceries in the
north end Of the building, which
was separated from the other part
of the room by partition made of
muslin. They only kept a small
quantity of groceries, just sufficient
to entice travellers into their den.
The next day, people came to the
house by hundreds. Among them
come Col. York. 1t was not over
thirty minutes after he arrived
before he walked right to his broth
er's grave in a small orchard patch
south Of the house. They killed
DR.. York on the 18th day of March,
and then plowed the spot all over
where he was buried. But the
ground had settled so as to make q
small crack all around the grave.
The next day an immense crowd of
people came, and we found seven
more bodies all in the same patch
OF ground, and not more than ten
rods from the house. They all had
their heads smashed and Threats
cut, so it seems they knocked them
down and threw them through the
trap-door and cut their throats, for
it smelled very badly down there as
soon as the dirt in the cellar was
stirred. On this account we did
great deal OF digging there before
we looked much elsewhere. The
family always kept themselves
very secluded, and had but little to
do with their neighbors, and this is
the reason their absence was not
sooner discovered