The Bloody Bender Family

The Bloody Bender Family

In 1870, the Benders, originally from Germany, settled in Kansas, where the American government offered lands “sold” by the natives to anyone who committed to cultivating them.

At that time, when the American West was a destination for pioneers and adventurers of all kinds, the long journey to the distant West was fraught with dangers.

Highwaymen and natives defending their territory were not as fearsome as the Bender family, who later became known as the Bloody Benders.

Old John Bender, simply called “Pa,” obtained 65 acres, while his son John received a smaller plot. Then there were Mrs. Bender, known as “Ma,” and daughter Kate.

The Wayside Inn

The Benders decided to capitalize on the location of their new property, situated right on the Great Osage Trail, a route traveled by pioneers heading west.

Thus, the Wayside Inn was born, a truly disreputable inn…

In reality, it was a simple room, divided by a curtain.

At the front was the tavern/store, while behind the curtain was the family’s living quarters.

Many travelers stopped at the Wayside Inn to stock up on liquor, tobacco, food, and also to have a decent meal and refresh their animals.

Some chose to spend the night there, perhaps to spend some time with the beautiful Kate, the most outgoing of the family, who also posed as a healer and “spiritist.”

An Unpleasant Place of Rest…

However, at the Wayside Inn, nothing was as it seemed: none of the family members were actually named Bender, and the only real family connection was between “Ma” and Kate.
“Pa” was named John Flickinger, while “Ma” was Almira Meik.

The woman, besides having had 12 children by a certain Griffith, had collected a fair number of husbands, all of whom had died from head wounds.

Kate’s real name was Eliza Griffith, while her supposed brother John was actually John Gebhart and was, it seems, her husband.

This might not have mattered much—if strange things had not been happening at the Wayside Inn:

It wasn’t so unusual; among the thousands of people heading west, many went missing without a trace.

There could be many reasons for this, and therefore the disappearance of some adventurer or settler did not arouse much interest.

The Beginning of the Bloodbath

Within a couple of years, however, someone noticed that many disappearances had occurred along that stretch of the Great Osage Trail, right around the Wayside Inn.
Moreover, several bodies were found in the area, evidently murdered, but no one could know who had done it.

Until, in 1872, a certain George Loncher and his daughter disappeared while heading to Iowa, where they never arrived.

In this case, however, someone went to look for them—Dr. William York, who followed the Osage Trail.

He was the wrong victim because the doctor had two influential brothers, a colonel and a senator. Colonel Ed York undertook an investigation, which led him to the Benders.

After a few days of bad weather, which had prevented the start of searches in the local farms, the local residents noticed that the inn was empty.

What they had left behind was, however, horrifying.

Behind the partitioning curtain, there was a trapdoor leading to a cellar, from which a strong, foul smell emanated because the earth was soaked in blood.

However, there was no body!

The Discovery of the Corpses

When volunteers began to dig in the garden, they made the gruesome discovery.
In one night, seven corpses were found, and another the following day, all with crushed skulls and throats cut…

Among them were the bodies of Dr. York, his friend Loucher, and his approximately eight-year-old daughter.

At the Bender farm, ten bodies were found, but the family was attributed with 21 murders, all carried out using the same technique.

The guest would sit with their back to the partitioning curtain, and during dinner, they would be struck on the head with a hammer.

The body was then thrown into the cellar through the trapdoor, and one of the two men would slit the victim’s throat to ensure death.

Once dead, the victim was stripped of any valuables.

THE SEARCH FOR THE GUILTY

Even though significant bounties were placed on the heads of the Bloody Bender Family, no one ever came forward to claim them, although, in the following years, some claimed to have killed them, without providing any evidence.
Some women were arrested on suspicion of being Ma or Kate, but they were never positively identified; the Bloody Bender Family was now nowhere to be found.

Although the Bender wagon was found a few miles from their property, every trace of them vanished.

No one knows what happened to the infamous serial killer family, the first recorded in U.S. history.

Even today, nearly 150 years later, the mystery remains unsolved and, probably, will never be revealed.

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