The Newtown bee., 1880-08-11
THE BENDER FAMILY.
The Story of Their Terrible Grimes Tn Kansas Revived by the Capture of Two of Them in Nebraska.

The Story of Their Terrible Crimes in |
 Kansas Revived by the Capture of Two
 Of Them in Nebraska. |
 The recent capture in Nebraska of John Bender and his daughter Kate, two of the notorious Kansas murderers, refreshens interest in the story of thelr | terrible crimes. The history Of the | Bender family and of the murders which | they committed is one of the most re-
 yolting recorded in the annals of crime | in this country. The family consisted | of two men and two women, and they | occupied one-story frame-house. or
 rather cabin, twenty feet long by four
 teen wide, on the south side of the Osage Mission road, about two miles | from the town of Cherryvale, in Labette | county, Kansas. The house was on the l open prairie, and was kept as kind of wayside tavern for the accommodation of travellers The building was divided into two rooms, the front and larger one being used as dining-room. and the
 rear as sleeping apartment, ln whicn
 were two beds. Attached to the house
 in the rear was 2 garden, and the land
 on which the house was located em-
 braced about two acres The Benders
 were all of them repulslve III appear
 ance, and the neighbors shunned them,
 so that they had but few visitors. The two women pretended to be heanng
 mediums, but from subsequent develop
 ments it would appear that their claims | in this respect were only pu forward to | lure persons to the house in order to
 murder them for their money. The two
 men were reputed to be brothers, and | the two women passed as their wives 1 Shortly after the settlement of the Renders in the house near CherryvaIe,
 remarkable disappearanceS of travellers | began to be noted. The first that at- | tracted public attention was that ofsar
 old man and his granddaughter, who
 left Cherryvale in February. 1873. in a | two- horse wagon, to go to Fort Scott,
 but who never reached that place. All
 inquiries failed to elicit clew to their
 disappearance until. about the Deginmng
 of March, Dr. William H. York recog-
 nized the wagon and team at Fort Scott.
 He ascertained that the wagon had been purchased at the fort from some person I who had come from Cherryvale, and he | determined to ferret out the mystery
 He left Fort Scott on March 9, and he too disappeared. Large rewards were
 offered for his body, and the search
 made tor him was long and careIul
 one. but no clew to his fate could be ob- tained The search, however, tor Dr.
 York, led to the finding of the bodies of the old man and child in the ravine near
 Drum creek, with their throats cut ! from ear to ear. During the search for T Dr. York the house of the BeDders was
 visited often, but all the family denied
 having seen him. They were evidently
 frightened, however, at the persistent
 search that was being made, and one
 night in the middle ot April. 1873, the
 entire family disappeared. Their flight
 was net discovered for a week after
 ward, as none of the neighbors were in
 the habit of visiting the house. When
 it was made public everybody became
 convinced that the Renders had left for some good reason, and party from , Cherryvale started out to make an 1n- vestigation.
 The house was found exactly as the Renders had left it, and nothing suspl-
 cious was noted until, on moving one of the beds in the rear room, slight . depression in the floor led to the -dlscoV- . a well about six feet deep and i've feel . wide was discovered. from which arose l horrible stench. Upon exploring il ' the floor and walls were found to be [ saturated with thick, fetid blood, which l clung to the fingers of those who were groping around in the bottom of the 3 well. There was no doubt that whole
 sale murder had been committed in the - house, and that the bodies of the victim: r had been thrown into the well Bus nc l corpses were found here, and the party f continued its explorations in the gardel v to the rear of the house. Sharp rod: : were used to penetrate the ground, ant l after an hours fruitless search one O <. the rods struck something which Tel I like a human body. Shovels wer' l quickly brought, and the ground up heayed, when the body of 8 man lyln: D face downward was unearthed. liner e was no coffin, and a torn and discol
 ored shirt was all that covered tn
 bol ly. The corpse proved to be that Q Q Dr. York, and a wound on the b bvck Q e the head disclosed the cause of III ; death. This discovery encouraged tn e laborers to continue their work, and I n a short time nine more graves were dis if covered, eight of them containing slngl d bodies of men, and one of them an ol ,s man and a little girl. Most of the bodle r were so far decomposed as to max a recognition of the faces impossible. In d throats of all, except Dr. York and th e little girl, had been cut, and the girl ha !. apparently been buried alive.
 q The mysterious disappearances wei If now accounted for. The Renders Ina le murdered the travellers who stopped m their house, stripped them of money an d clothes, thrown them bleeding into u o well under the rear room, and the i, buried them at convenient times Tn u 70 garden Descriptions of the lugltlv ,e were sent all over the country, and u ,o whole land was secured for them Pa ,e ties were organized in Kansas to hul In for them, and weeks were spent in u 10 pursuit, but the Renders had too mue n. of start, and their trail was lost. Fe' O. different men and women supposed ,il belong to the Bender family have be- or arrested during the last seven years, b n. they have succeeded in proving the n- identity, and have been released.