RedHanded - Bonus Patreon Upcycle - The Bloody Benders: America’s First Serial Killer Family

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

When countless lone travellers began to vanish without a trace along the Great Osage Trail in the early 1870s, the people of Labette County, Kansas, were gripped with fear.Soon enough, the county’s residents realised that all the victims had one thing in common: they’d all visited the Bender Inn, a small cabin run by a mysterious German family.But by then it was too late.The Benders were gone with the wind – and as for who they were and where they went, well, that remained a mystery for over 140 years… until now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Check out her place in the Hamptons. Huh, fancy. She's a big carbon tax supporter, yeah? Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here.

She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM,

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A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello you. Happy Christmas. Are you wondering what this is? Because we did tell you after all that we were going to take two weeks off. Well, if you're wondering that, you're probably one of our fabulous new listeners. Because what we like to do every Christmas when we take our much needed two week break is dig into our old Patreon archives and pull out two episodes that

we thought were just fantastic, even if we do say so ourselves. So here you go, for your listening pleasure, check out this Patreon upcycle bonus episode. And if you love it, then think about possibly in 2024, making it your New Year's resolution to sign up to the Red Handed Patreon. Just head on over to patreon.com slash red handed. And if you do for just $5 a month, you could get access to so much more bonus content. There's weekly content plus full length bonus episodes every single month delivered for your listening pleasure. Now, with that being said, I will shut up. I will let you enjoy this episode and have yourself a fabulous Christmas. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to...

Red Handed Does Halloween. Yep. In our hearts, it's always October. In our hearts, it's always October. We've been racing towards this finish line all year. If you are new to the show, which I understand there are many millions of you, what we do in October is we like to theme the entire month with the worst shit we can possibly find. And we've done that, and now we have shorthand. We've done it twice every week.

Double trouble. Double true bell. Boiling trouble. Oh, my God. I learned this the other day. Eye of newt. Mustard seed. It's just a colloquial term.

Isn't that dull? That is. I wish you hadn't told me. Yeah, sorry. Well, there you go. And there's this whole long list of things that are like witchy names for just very normal herbs. That's fun. Yeah.

Though, in another long list of things that sruti's grandma likes to say you never ever grow mustard seeds in your house because it will destroy your family okay so what happens if you grow mustard seeds is that cress is that what you get no because you can everyone grows cress in the house in cotton wool and my family's fine oh no my dad died god damn it what do mustard seeds grow into a mustard plant surely mature mustard plants grow into shrubs thanks i don't think it's the same as watercress is it not the same as watercress okay well whatever mustards mustards grow into we're in your family. So don't grow them in your house.

From my grandma. I don't know why. She doesn't elaborate. But anyway, you're not here to listen to us talk about that. You're here to listen to us talk about some fucking weird shit. And this is, we were put onto this by Ash Nelena of Morbid Fame. Because we had no idea. Because we are butt stupid Brits.

We've just got Sauny Bean and that's not even real. Yeah, exactly. This is the US doing Sauny Bean real and right. Yes. That's all I have to say on it. So if you don't know what Sauny Bean is, it's like an old tale that was told in the UK about a cannibalistic group of Scots living somewhere in Scotland who were abducting, kidnapping, murdering and then feasting upon the flesh of any Englishman who just so happened to cross them. Sounds like a great story because there was also loads of incest, living in caves, whatnot. Turns out it wasn't real. It was just a bunch of anti-Scottish propaganda. It certainly was.

I saw someone on TikTok tell it as if it was real. And I was so enraged that I almost commented being like, who the fuck do you think you are? You've become that person. I know. It was only a matter of time. Sometimes I want to and then I'm like, no, no, no. What purpose does this serve my life?

Yeah. Absolutely none. Move on. I didn't do it. Good. I'm proud of you. You can't become what you hate life? Yeah. Absolutely none. Move on. I didn't do it. Good. I'm proud of you. You can't become what you hate most, Hannah. I know.

That is the real Halloween fear. We do. But anyway, so this is real life Zorni Bean. And it is a proper past okay. Something we don't do too often on Red Handed. But I think it's going to be fun. It's going to be worth it. Good, clean Halloween fun.

So in 1886, wasn't kidding, Frances McCann, the wife of a wealthy merchant, woke up from a nightmare in her home in McPherson County, Kansas. In her dream, Frances had been walking through a house when suddenly she heard a blood-curdling scream. It came from the basement and stopped her dead in her tracks. Terrified, Frances slowly crept down the stairs to see what had happened. And that's where she found a man lying on the floor with his throat cut open, choking on his own blood.

Then, all of a sudden, a woman emerged from the darkness behind him and screamed, My God, take her away! And that's when Frances woke up. The nightmare shook Frances up so badly that the very next day she confided in her cleaning lady, a widow called Sarah Davis. Frances had barely finished telling Sarah about the nightmare when she shouted,

That was no dream. It's all real. And it was something you saw when you were just a child. I'm going to say, Sarah, picky moment. Yes. When she's like, oh my God, I had such a horrible nightmare. Maybe don't yell that at her. Possibly. Maybe get her a little cup of laudanum or whatever the fuck people did that with.

Fucking knock her out with some laudanum. No fucking problem, mate. That'll give you a nightmare. I'll tell you that for nothing. Can you tell who's been researching all the ways in which the Victorian home is trying to kill you? Shorthand coming soon in November. But yes, maybe have some more chill, Sarah. Break it to her gently.

And she might need it broken to her gently because Frances, you see, was an orphan. And she was orphaned at an early age, as most people are in the 1880s. How old do you have to be before you stop saying you're an orphan? Can you be an adult orphan? Can you be an elderly orphan i i don't know and this probably won't make the final cup there was someone in my school

whose dad died when he was in year nine and then his mum died when he was in year 11 all the other way around can't remember orphan yeah are you an. If you're 17, does that make you an orphan? I think if you've got teen, you is an orphan. Okay. You are orphan. You are. Is it what, the 18 is the threshold? I still seem savage, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I think it's a case by case. Yeah. But when you are Frances McCann, wife of a wealthy merchant, are you an orphan? I don't know. It's a bigger question. Yes, true.

But she was orphaned at an appropriate age to meet the orphanage threshold. She knew absolutely, well, next to nothing about her parents or where she'd come from. Clearly unsettled by this memory suddenly having resurfaced in her dreams, Thanks to bloody Sarah, Sarah let Frances in on a secret, one that she had kept her entire life. And in my head, Sarah is this wizened old lady.

So she's kept the secret for a long time at some point. And this was the secret. Frances's biological mother was called Elizabeth. Elizabeth just so happened to be wizened old Sarah's sister. Sarah, how? How have you kept this? And also, why did you just wait until she had this nightmare to tell her all of this stuff? I don't understand, but please continue. Yep, all of this time, all of these years, Sarah hadn't just been Frances's housekeeper.

She was actually her aunt. And what Frances had seen in her nightmare was her grandmother cutting her father's throat. Sarah then hinted that this hadn't been the only murder Frances's grandmother had committed. As the days passed, a realisation began to dawn on Francis. Maybe her grandmother was actually Old Mar Bender, the matriarch of the infamous Bloody Benders.

I don't think that would be as funny in an American accent. I mean, I think it would be quite funny in, like, a southern American. Old Mar Bender! get off the damn roof in some sort of deliverance scenario i can see it now who are these infamous bloody benders i hear you screaming well they were a family who had terrorized Kansas 16 years before, having reportedly murdered over 20 people before vanishing into thin air. This is the true story of America's first serial killer family. So let's get to it. No, because before we do, we've got to set the scene. Since its formation in 1776, which is from Hamilton, the US had been in a state of constant turmoil over the issue of slavery.

Pro-slavery states and free states were in constant battles all over the nation, and tensions eventually erupted in a brutal period dubbed Bleeding Kansas, which saw numerous vicious armed conflicts and massacres between the two sides. So when the state of Kansas declared itself a free state in 1861, civil war broke out in the USA. But when the war ended four years later, the bloodshed in Kansas was far from over. In fact, for the inhabitants of one particular area of the state, the worst was yet to come. La Bette County.

And La Bette is French for the beast. You've got to say it in a French accent. La Bette. La Bette. La Bette County. Welcome to La Bette County. Bienvenue. Fuck it up. It's. Labette County. Welcome to Labette County. Bienvenue. Fuck it up.

It's also just so aggressive. It's like French for beast. And we're like, beast. And they're like, bet. I'm Jake Warren. And in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey

to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider

some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, presidential lies, environmental disasters,

corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. So there are various stories about how the county Le Bet got its name.

But our personal favourite here at Red Handed is that it was originally a settlement of French fur trappers whose campsite was attacked by a huge skunk that they dubbed Le Bet. Now Le Bet was established in 1867 and it was less than a year before it had its first murder trial and more followed in quick succession. Because you see, Le Bette was a lot less settled than other parts of Kansas. And as a result, it became quite the haven for outlaws.

And skunks. Yes, beastly ones. Murder, thievery, raids and kidnappings were all commonplace among the settlements of Kansas. But what happened in the Beast County between 1871 and 1873 was something that the US didn't even have a word for yet. During that time, LaBette County was terrorized by serial killers. And not just any serial killers, but a family of them. Kansas used to be populated by the native Osage people until they were forcefully relocated by the government and forced to sell their land for $1.25 per acre. And if you want to hear all about that, you can go and listen to episode 246 of Full Fat Red Handed. It's called the Osage Reign of Terror. And I believe there is a film coming. Is it Scorsese? It is Scorsese

with his favourite, my least favourite, Leonardo DiCaprio. So, the Osage get kicked out and then the Homestead Act of 1862 was put in place

to attract European settlers to take their place. The Act offered 160 acres of land to anybody who would pay $18 and farm it

for five years. Bargain. Yeah. It's like those really remote towns in Switzerland that are like, come and live here and we'll give you 5,000 million pounds. Yeah. They're like, there's nobody here. Italy's all over it. They are, aren't they?

I think Sardinia even. Should we just go? To Sardinia? Just move there? Just move the whole operation? Take this whole fucking shit table and microphones. Yeah, you're right, it's a bit hot. Let's keep brainstorming. We're not going to the Arctic Circle, I've put my foot down. Gah!

So as a result of the Homestead Act, white settlers from all over Europe travelled all the way to Kansas to claim their piece of land. Two of those Europeans were John Bender Sr. and John Bender Jr., German men who arrived in Labette County. Look, it's like the most lawless place at the time. Why won't you change your name? No one, it doesn't matter.

Just say, my name's not Bender it's something else suzy q and on exactly so two europeans were john suzy q and on senior and john suzy q and on junior well i wonder whether bender was given to them on ellis island as uh an un-germanized version of a different name maybe i don't know what i mean i'm just talking out my ass i have no idea i also don't know if you emigrated to kansas on a government scheme you had to go to ellis island that seems counterproductive to me yeah also for like when when was that when was ellis island was that after the wars no was that way before i don't know if i can say way before i see but i'm really exposing the holes in our education let's keep moving moving on. Talk to us about the Nazis fucking all over it.

So John Senior, who people refer to as Old Man Bender, had a big beard and, according to numerous accounts, was built like a gorilla. And also spoke next to no English. So you can call him what you want. I don't know what you're saying. Quite. Now John Jr, who was in his 20s, was skinny and clean cut and believed by many to be what they called

a simpleton, because he giggled after every sentence he spoke. Now nobody knows exactly where the two men had come from, but like thousands of others, they'd come to make their claim on the land. The railroad hadn't been built yet, so people travelling across Kansas had to take the old Assage Trail, which ran between two cities, Fort Scott and Independence. And just a hundred yards from this trail,

old man Bender and John Jr. decided to build their home on the top of a hill. Better than at the bottom. It is. You are right. Isn't Kansas supposed to be very flat, though? That's what I thought. I don't know.

Maybe they, like, cut down all the hills. Like the Vikings did in Iceland. True, true, true. So the spot they chose only had three neighbours. A cabin a mile south, another a mile northeast, and a trading post over the hill. So not only did they have complete privacy, but being high up meant they could see travellers on the trail from miles away.

And as you'll come to see, this was no happy accident. It was very much a strategic choice. With wood that they'd bought from Fort Scott, the two men built a one-room cabin on top of a shallow cellar that they dug out. That cellar was seven feet deep. By the early months of 1871, the place was finished and it was time for the rest of their family to arrive. Old Man Bender and John Jr. met the two Bender women at the station in the nearby town of Ottawa. The elder woman, Elvira, as in the vampire woman,

was in her 50s and was otherwise known as Ma or the Old Hag because Ma didn't speak any English, so again, you can call her what you want. Wow. Good names. Mar Bender has been described by historians as a stout, homely woman with a tallow white face and a temper as bad as her husband's. Then there was the younger woman, Kate Bender, 23. Kate has been described as having rich auburn hair, greyish blue eyes, and a well-formed, greyish blue eyes, and a well-formed, voluptuous mould and skin as white as milk.

How's your mould? Um, well-formed? Um, maybe not as voluptuous as Kate's was, but is Kate Elvira's daughter? That's what we're guessing at this situation. Imagine your mum is called Elvira, Elvira, like the vampire. And she's like, Kate, you will be Kate. Kate Bender. So Kate probably got away with having a boring name because she was fit as fuck. She's incredibly attractive, all of the sources have told us.

And she possessed a sexual magnetism that few men could resist. This is when they're living in a place where there is like one house for every mile. Yeah, there's only two women in the whole town and one's the old hag. It's old hag, vampire, and Libra, or Kate, with her voluptuous mould. But, as we will all come to learn, it wasn't Kate's striking appearance that makes her the most interesting character in this case. The Benders turned the front half of their small cabin

into a grocery store, selling tobacco, coffee, soap, ammunition, etc. Everything one would need for a life on the... Prairie? I think we can say prairie. We can say what we want. People will correct us later. Prairie. And for a small fee, they'd even let weary travellers sleep on some straw mattresses on the floor inside their cabin. They'd get a hot meal at the dinner table, cooked by Ma, or the old old hag and served by sexy Kate. A large canvas curtain partitioned the door of the cabin from the Bender's private living area in the back.

And as well as the place being a grocery, an inn and a place to eat, Kate Bender also offered her services as a cleverwant. I mean, she's multi-talented, top tier, absolutely top tier, and again, cleverwint, just what you need when you're making a difficult journey through the prairie. Kate had handed out leaflets claiming that she could cure blindness, fits and deafness, as well as, of course, conducting seances, telling fortunes and making love potions. The local men were absolutely mesmerised by Kate. Many of them would come over and do chores for free and even travel out of town to buy goods for the benders.

But others weren't nearly as taken by the family. Some rather dark rumours had spread around the town of Labette about the mysterious new German family on the hill. Stories were told about how Ma and Kate had stripped naked in a graveyard and given their bodies and souls to Satan in exchange for becoming witches. And worse, many believed that Kate and John Jr, both children from Ma's previous relationship, were in an incestuous

relationship. They even said that the family would kill Kate's incest babies whenever she had one. People are just bored, man. They're like, they're German. They don't understand what we're saying. No, they don't understand what anyone's saying. And also, they're probably like, why isn't Kate married? It must be because she's having sex with her brother. That's the only logical conclusion. Exactly. Do you think it was started by a scorned man who Kate refused?

Yes, rumours are fun, but they are just rumours. No historian could possibly confirm whether any of this was actually true. But what we do know is that in May 1871, two boys were on their way to do a little bit of fishing at the local creek when they made a rather morbid discovery. They found the decomposing body of a man lying face down in the mud. His skull had been caved in and his throat was cut so severely that his head was barely hanging onto his neck by a few strands of flesh. The man was soon confirmed to be William Jones, who'd been missing for a few weeks. He'd last been seen making his way to Independence to buy some land.

He was known to have been carrying quite a bit of cash on him at the time, and that was now missing. The only clue at the scene was a set of weird wheel tracks. Unusually, the rear wheels were further apart than the ones in the front. The closest thing Lebec County had to law enforcement was a man named Leroy Dick. Dick was the Osage Township trustee, and he held sermons at the local church. So needless to say, the investigation into William Jones' murder didn't get very far at all. And before long, the very ordinary name William Jones was forgotten. The winter of 1871 was a particularly brutal one.

Snowstorms pummeled Labette County and left it blanketed in a thick layer of snow. In January, the snow began to melt away, revealing the bodies of two men who'd been, quote, unceremoniously dumped out on the prairie. They were more than 20 miles from the spot where William Jones had been found. But both men had been murdered in the same way.

Their heads were crushed and their throats were cut open. And yet again, nobody had a clue what was happening. As the months went by, at least nine more men went missing as they passed through Labette County. It was now clear to the locals that the Osage Trail was not safe to travel. And the strange disappearances in Labette County soon began to garner national attention. Newspapers dubbed the state of Kansas as a perilous place and said that the disappearances that were happening left, right and centre were an utter disgrace to the state. People assumed that the killings were the work of

a group of unknown outlaws or horse thieves. Leroy Dick himself received six letters in a single month from families of men who'd vanished on the old Osage Trail. But Dick refused to acknowledge that the disappearances were connected. These police officers, they've been at this for fucking ever. This is like, no, nothing to see here. Are we calling the local vicar the police? Oh, sorry. No, but I mean, he's kind of the same thing.

He's the vicar. He's the policeman. He's the lamplighter. The waker-upperer. He's all of it. Yeah. He's a one man band is our Dick

so yeah he refused to acknowledge that any of the disappearances were connected let alone that somebody in his own community could have been responsible

for all of them classic le classique de classica and Leroy Dick didn't even do anything when in November 1872 his own cousin, Henry Mackenzie, disappeared as well.

That same winter, a man named George Longcore vanished without a trace. George's wife had recently died, so he had decided to take his little girl, leave Kansas behind and move back in with his parents in Iowa. Before setting off, George bought a wagon from his family physician, Dr. William York, for the journey. But they didn't get far before getting caught in a blizzard, so George and his daughter took refuge in the home of an old widow. The hospitable old lady was worried that the little girl's clothes

weren't warm enough for the weather, so she gave her some hand-me-downs from her own children. But after setting off again the following day, George and his daughter were never seen again. The following spring in 1983, Dr York, George's physician, happened to also hit the old Osage Trail. He was on his way to visit his brother, Colonel Alexander York, in Fort Scott.

When he arrived, he heard a story about a wagon that had been abandoned in some nearby woods. What was even stranger still was that the two horses pulling the wagon had been left behind. They'd nearly starved to death. Curious, Dr York decided to take a look at this situation for himself, and to his shock, the wagon in the woods, the abandoned wagon with the starving horses, was the very same wagon he had sold to George Longcore just weeks before. But with nothing he could do, Dr York just went back to his brothers.

A few weeks later, Dr York then made the journey back to independence along the old Osage Trail. And on the way, he stopped in at a shop in Parsons to buy some cigars, casual. He told the shopkeeper that he was planning on spending the night at the Bender Inn. Dr York never made it home. A few weeks later, when Colonel York heard that his brother had disappeared, he set out on a mission to get to the bottom of things. And Colonel York was not a man to mess with. He was a lawyer, a war veteran, the owner of the South Kansas Tribune,

and an elected state senator. So he's a few steps up from Leroy Dick. Yeah. So the colonel few steps up from Leroy Dick. Yeah. So the colonel gathered 50 armed men from Fort Scott, and they set off along the Osage Trail, stopping at every homestead on their way for any clues. And that's when they met a store owner who'd sold the colonel's brother some cigars.

And he told him that Dr York had mentioned that he was going to spend the night at the Benders Inn. So, the group of men confronted the Benders at their home. Kate Bender confirmed that the doctor had indeed spent the night, but claimed that he'd left the following morning. Kate then offered to use her mystical powers to consult with her spirit guide, who just so happened to be an old indian chief

and she said that she might be able to see if he knew anything about dr york's whereabouts brass neck seriously i mean there's that whole like you know what do you do if the police turn up and you've done spoilers you've done the murders and you're just like try get them out try act normal don't try like you're trying to rush them out. But invite them in to do a seance so you can find out what happened with your old Indian chief spirit guide. Top tip, really. Top tier is Kate. She continues to be.

So, yeah, she told them that it would take some time and that she'd have an answer for them the following day. On the condition that Colonel York came alone. But the Colonel smelled a rat, so he arrived with his men in tow the following morning. They interrogated the Benders about the 1871 murder of William Jones, whose body was found near the Benders Inn. John Jr. insisted that Jones must have been killed by outlaws, probably giggling at the end of every sentence that he said. He also claimed that he too had just narrowly escaped being

ambushed near that very same creek. Now most of the colonel's men didn't believe a word of it and said that they should arrest the whole family there and then. But the colonel disagreed. He now felt that the Benders were nothing more than a family of innocent simpletons. So the men hit the road. The following month, in early April 1873, a hundred people from the Osage Township gathered for an emergency meeting at the local school to discuss the murders. Together, they agreed that the only thing for it was to do a thorough search of every single homestead from Independence to Fort Scott. This is what happens when you don't have CCTV.

We search everybody. And nobody noticed. Old Man Bender and John Jr. slinking out of that all-hands-on-deck local town meeting. Jesus Christ, past times. The following week, a local man found a broken-down wagon with two horses still hitched to it about ten miles north of the Bender Inn. He couldn't help but notice the rear wheels of the wagon were set considerably wider than the ones at the front. Hello. Well, at least one person's got their fucking eyes open. A few weeks later, one of the Bender's neighbours was walking by

when he noticed the place looked desolate. Many of the Bender's animals were out of their pens. And then he took a closer look and he found a calf that had starved to death. And when this neighbour knocked at the door and got no answer, he immediately reported the whole thing to Leroy Dick and Leroy Dick passed it on to someone who knows what they're doing, Colonel York. A few days later, the Colonel and his men forced their way into the Bender's homestead. At first glance, nothing seemed out of place in the tiny cabin. The furniture was all in place, and the goods from the shop were still there. And all the men found during their search were three hammers underneath the stove and old man Bender's German Bible. On the inside cover, he'd scribbled down the birth and death dates of various family members

and also the words, Slag day. I know it is very immature of me, but I enjoy that immensely. Well, I enjoy it immensely too, because slag in Swedish means the end. So at the end of Swedish Finding Nemo, you're looking out into the beautiful ocean scape. And then of nowhere this word just appears and it just goes slag that is outstanding I can only offer one other European slag related translation for you too but that is that is immaculate imagine going to amsterdam yeah taking in the sights sounds edibles you're just enjoying yourself you're craving above all else to calm you down a delicious hot belgian waffle yeah covered in nutella strawberries and cream you make your way over to the kiosk you ask for it and

he says cream and he picks up a bottle of cream. And you say yes. And then he puts it all over. And then you look at the bottle that he's holding. And on that bottle it says slag room. Because slag room is Dutch for whipped cream. Just one word, slag room. Lovely. So slag is not a German word. Nobody knows what he really meant when using the word slag is not a German word. Nobody knows what he really meant when using the word slag. But slag may not be German, but it is close to a German word. Sklacht. And sklacht means slaughter. So journalists speculated that slag day written in the German family Bible actually meant Slaughter Day.

And it's possible he wasn't that educated. Yes. adored and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near LA in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder.

Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down.

Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry.

Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. So one thing the men couldn't ignore inside the cabin was the putrid stench and the dozens of circling bottle flies filling the room. Following their noses they realised it was coming from a small hatch in the floor underneath the

dining table. When they moved the table and lifted the hatch door the odour became so strong most of the men had to leave the cabin. So Colonel York ordered his men to lift the entire cabin off its foundations so they could inspect the cellar properly. I suppose that's one good thing of everyone having houses essentially made of Lego, is that you can just pick them up and move them over a bit. I mean, it's where we're heading. It's where we're heading. I've got nothing against prefab. It's very effective, but that is basically where we're going. And then maybe, you know, you'd be harder to get away with murders because they'll just be like, whoop. And so with a dozen men on each side, they did just that. They moved the house. And to their horror, the entire floor of the cellar and the ground underneath was completely covered in coagulated blood and gore.

One of the men then noticed something disturbing in the poorly tended orchard behind the cabin. It looked like a grave. He went over and poked it with a stick, as you do, it was the CSI of the time, and the blood drained from his face as a tuft of human hair came up with his stick. It took two men less than a minute to dig up the body buried in the shallow grave. The skull had been broken in two, likely from a hammer, and the throat, just like all of the other bodies, had been cut ear to ear. The sun was almost set and the garden descended into darkness. But even in the dim light, it only took one look for the colonel to recognise the decapitated body. It was, of course, his brother, Dr York.

A question, a cue for you. In a world where your brother is not heavily tattooed, could you identify his decapitated body without a face? Yeah. Do you reckon? Yeah. Could you? Your brother? Don't know. Which is one of those things that will have to hopefully remain unanswered forever.

That's one of the only benefits of having the enormous birthmarks that I have have is that my body would be extremely easy to identify. I reckon I could identify your body. I think I could identify yours. That's good. That's a relief. And so the men returned the following morning to search the rest of the orchard, and they found eight more graves.

Amongst the bodies were Leroy Dick's cousin, an unknown woman, a series of random body parts, and the bodies of George Longcore and his 18-month old daughter. It's like Pasto Gilgo Beach. It is like Pasto Gilgo Beach. Down to the 18-month old baby doe. Yeah.

Except she's not a baby doe, we know she wasn't. And we don't know about the sex parties. No. Disturbingly though, the girl didn't look like she had any visible injuries and she was still fully clothed. So the men decided that that must mean

that she had been buried alive. Which... They're from the Sarah Davies school of intensity. Apart from the little girl

who had been found essentially without any wounds and fully clothed all of the men had been killed in the same way They had their skulls smashed and their throats slit Three of them, however, were castrated as well The men were furious and because there's nothing going on words like this travels quite quickly in the olden days

so loads of other people showed up too and they quickly turned against one of the men there present There's nothing going on. Word like this travels quite quickly in the olden days. So loads of other people showed up too. And they quickly turned against one of the men there present. A German. A neighbour of the Benders. And York's men accused this German neighbour of the Benders of being complicit in the murders. They do always return to the scene of the crime. And desperate to get this German man to confess,

they put a noose around his neck and hanged him three times. Just letting him drop just before he died. That'll do it. And then pulling him back. That'll do it. Eventually, cooler heads prevailed and the German was allowed to go about

his way on account of his good reputation. Doesn't take much either way in the olden days does it no no they're like hang him three times but not to death not to death and then they're like oh you know what he is a good chap let him go but perhaps they shouldn't have because maybe they were onto something because although he was innocent on this occasion, he wasn't involved in the deaths as far as we know, that German neighbour would go on to torture his 16-year-old daughter to death 23 years later.

Look, this isn't Minority Report. Colon the prairie. But anyway, back to the bloody Benders. The revelation that the Bender family had been the ones behind the mysterious disappearances in the Beck County was soon on the front page of every newspaper in the country. And before long, people began coming forward with stories of how they'd narrowly escaped the same fate.

A man named William Pickering said he'd stopped in at the inn for a hot meal. He said that Kate had insisted he sit in the guest chair at the dining table, but he'd refused because of a strange stain on the canvas curtain behind her. Kate then became angry, and when she threatened him with a knife, William ran out of there. Next up, there was Father Paul Prongulone, a Catholic priest, who told reporters that he'd stopped at the inn after being caught in a rainstorm one night. According to the priest, he was eating, sitting in the guest chair, with his back to the canvas curtain, presumably not to look at that horrible stain, when he noticed old man Bender and Kate speaking in hushed German tones. And when the old man slinked behind the curtain,

holding a sledgehammer, our Catholic priest got spooked. He jumped on his horse and rode away as fast as he could. Basically being super like nervous and scared of stains is the way to stay alive in Kansas Prairie Town. And there was another woman who came forward and she said that she'd been scared off from the Bender's Inn when she was sitting eating in the very same guest chair and felt movement behind the curtain right by her head. And when Kate, who was sat opposite her, suddenly yelled, Now! the woman leapt up and ran out of the cabin. These accounts, together with the injuries found on the bodies,

helped authorities to finally piece together the Bender's MO. It was clear that they'd only kill lone travellers, which is why they would have chosen to build their cabin on a hilltop right next to the Assange Trail, because that's full of what? Lone travellers. And when weary travellers stopped by the inn, the old hag would offer them a hot meal. Kate would disarm them with her looks and engage them in conversation to find out who they were. The guest would sit there eating dinner in the special guest seat at the dining table with the backs to the canvas curtain. Completely unaware that

one of the bender men were waiting behind them on the other side. There really is a man behind the curtain, don't look at him. Because this one, this man behind the curtain, had a sledgehammer in his hand and he was ready to smash it all over the guest's head. And then the guest's body, after they'd been smashed, would have been dropped into the cellar through a trap door under the dining table like in Sweeney Todd. And then we think that Kate would then jump down and slit their throats to ensure that the guest really was dead. It's also widely believed that Kate Bender was the leader and instigator of the family's murderous endeavours, and that's why you can never trust a ginger. I'm a ginger, I can say. After sunset, the body would be removed from the cellar and disposed of.

And at first, the benders would casually just jump all the bodies all over the prairie. No one came looking. But after some bodies were found, William Jones, for example, the benders decided to be a bit more careful and started to bury the bodies in the orchard. So why did they do it? Well, they were mostly killing for cash. Many of the victims were known to be carrying large sums of money on them. It's estimated that the benders robbed

around $200,000 in today's money from their victims, and that's not including the jewellery and the other valuables that they stole. But it's also known that many of the victims were penniless, which would mean that they weren't killed just for profit. It looked like the Benders were murdering for pleasure. And in the weeks following these horrifying discoveries, the Bender home became a macabre tourist attraction. Thousands of men, women and children from all around the country flocked to the small cabin in Labette County,

and almost every one of them took a souvenir back with them. See? Spooky bitches. Goes all the way fucking back, back, back, back, forever. These people took pieces of wood from the cabin walls, shingles, stones from the well, or branches from the apple tree orchard. What are they doing with them? They don't have TV, you know. They just go home and they're like, look, look at this shell. Well, you did have that girl in the Himalayas who was picking up rocks and carrying around with her.

I mean, she needs help. One particularly creepy woman cut a lock of hair from George Longcore's 18-month-old daughter and turned it into a wreath. So not only are these people going to this spooky murder cabin, the bodies are still in there and they're poking around in there. I mean, nothing says, welcome to my Christmas house, like a wreath made of a murdered baby's hair. Also, what's Leroy Dick doing? Isn't he supposed to be a priest? Can you not give them a proper burial? Leroy Dick is a... is a bad, bad, bad

helper. Whatever the fuck his job was. There's too many people in this story. By the end of the week, so the week after the discovery, I would imagine, apparently all that was left of the bender house was the naked timber frame. And even those were eventually taken. So after not very long at all, all that remained was a series of empty graves.

Does save the government quite a lot of money on raising these houses to the ground. But hold on. Where were those bloody benders? Well, within days of the discovery, Thomas A. Osborne, the governor of the state of Kansas, put out a $2,000 reward for anyone

to apprehend the benders and deliver them to the authorities. So a hunt was on for Kansas' famous serial killer family. Desperate for the reward, four different posses formed to hunt them down. But the benders had a one-week head start, and their trails quickly went cold. Colonel York hired a team of three detectives himself and put up a $1,000 reward. Together, they searched as far as the Texas-New Mexico border, but their long journey just led to another dead end.

It was as though the Benders had just vanished into thin air. As the years rolled on, numerous reported sightings of the family were reported, but none of them led anywhere. What was confirmed is that the four benders had bought train tickets to Humboldt. Not Humboldt County, where the weed is and everyone dies, but a city in Kansas called Humboldt instead. You would have thought that would have got out of the state. Come on. But the rest is all just speculation based on semi-reliable eyewitness accounts and, let's face it, conjecture. Some groups of vigilantes claimed to have tracked the family down and lynched them.

But nobody ever claimed that $3,000 reward, which in today's money is $73,000. So they probably didn't get them. In 1884, an elderly man who supposedly matched the description of Old Man Bender was arrested in Montana for murdering a man with a hammer in Idaho. But before deputies from Kansas could arrive to confirm his identity, the man had cut his own foot off and escaped his shackles. So by the time they got there, this man had bled to death and his body was too decomposed to be certain who it was. So am I expected to believe that this man, be he a bender or be he not, is arrested for killing a man with a hammer? Then he is locked in a prison cell.

Then he chops his own foot off. Can't escape because he's got one foot. Bleeds to death. And then they just leave him in the cell to decompose until the boys from kansas show up to be like i think it's hard to know whether he escaped justice shackles or escaped his confinement and then tried to what hop his way away from justice and then they find him on some road somewhere having bled to death it's not super clear no this is why we don't typically do pasto cases it's very hard to be clear of the details

but i do wonder what his thought process was how far are you going to get with one foot yeah not far not far well apparently not i wonder how long it takes you to bleed to death through an ankle. Anyway, a question that we don't have the answer for because I'm not a doctor, but I am a doctor. But even though he couldn't really be identified because he was so decomposed, this man's skull, whoever he was,

was displayed in a saloon in Idaho and labelled as Par Bender until that saloon was shut down during Prohibition in 1920. And the skull went missing. Of course it did. So someone's got it. It's got a little Christmas hat on somewhere. It's an elf on the shelf.

I don't understand what that is. Nor do I. Nor do I. I'm just saying it because the North Americans will be like, I know that thing. I don't know what that thing is. I don't know what it is either. I don't know. I think it's a little elf you put on the shelf and your kids find it.

And you move it every day. Now, rumours and sightings of the seemingly ubiquitous Bender family persisted for years to come. Some said John Jr. was working on the railroad in Texas. Others said that Kate was running a brothel in San Francisco. Or that Pa Bender had killed himself in Michigan. One man even claimed that the four of them had escaped to Mexico in a hot air balloon. But another story that brings us all the way back to the start of our episode today. You

thought we'd forgotten about Frances McCann, we haven't. She is back, ready to make a reappearance. So this story was that in 1889, back when we started this episode with Frances McCann's nightmare, Frances had dreamt that she'd witnessed a woman murdering a man in a cellar. When she, if you remember, confided this to her cleaning woman, Sarah Davies, Sarah told Frances that this was no dream. Sarah claimed that it was a repressed memory from Frances's childhood, and that she'd witnessed her father being murdered by her own grandmother. Sarah then revealed that she was, like we told you earlier,

in fact Frances' aunt, sister to her mother. And after Sarah hinted that her mother, so Frances' grandmother, had also murdered a number of other people, it dawned on Frances that her father may have been murdered by old Mar Bender. But before Frances could confront Sarah about this, she'd left Kansas

for Michigan in the dead of night. What the fuck, Sarah? But little did Sarah know, however, that Frances had followed her. So Francis followed Sarah to Michigan. And through some detective work, better than Leroy Dix, she figured out that Sarah knew someone in Michigan. She knew them very well. Because in Michigan lived Sarah's sister, who, if you need reminding, is also Francis's mother. so an orphan she is not. Dun-dun-dun! And once she figured this out, as you would, Frances spied on Sarah and her own mother day and night. And she spoke to the locals too, and they told Frances that both Sarah and her mother, who was going by the name Almira Griffith, both had criminal history.

Convinced she had tracked down the notorious Bender women, Frances alerted the McGishan police. And then the Michigan police got in touch with good old Leroy Dick, who was at this stage the Labette County Special Deputy Sheriff. So they do get their shit together eventually and have some sort of sheriff's department. But it's Leroy Dick. It's Leroy Dick. And so Leroy Dick made his way to Michigan that summer in 1889. And as soon as he laid eyes on the women, Sarah Davis and Elizabeth Davis, who was going by a different

name, he was certain that these two were in fact Kate and old Mar Bender, the old hag. The pair were taken into custody and transported to Oswego, Kansas, where they were charged with the murder of Dr. York and placed in a cell in Lebec County Jail. The women's preliminary hearing took place on the 18th of November 1889, and 13 witnesses confirmed that they were certain that these two were the Bender women. Four others, including neighbours of the Bender family, told the court that these women were most definitely not Kate Bender and the old hag. Well, sure. Yeah.

And then the older woman managed to prove that she had been in jail in Michigan in 1872 when a lot of the murders had taken place. So the judge was like, can't argue with that one. Off you go. And that is where the mystery of the bloody benders stops. It remained unsolved for well over a century. But then, 140 years later, Phyllis de la Garza, the author of Death for Dinner,

The Benders of Old Kansas, claims to have solved the mystery. Or at least some of it. De la Garza searched census records, articles, and biographies, and found that John Joseph Bender was born in Mausk Bay, Welschog, Baden, Germany in 1843. He then moved to Missouri, aged 21, and met a woman called Catherine Christiana Miller.

Catherine had moved to the U.S. from Baden, Germany, too, when she was just a child. John and Catherine married on the 4th of January 1868 in Hermann, Missouri, about 300 miles away from Kansas. After this, however, there's absolutely no record of them anywhere. Until they suddenly reappeared in Cannon City, Colorado in 1878. 1878 was five years after the benders had vanished from Kansas. Catherine, who we can now call Kate, then opened a tavern in Glenwood Springs in 1886. And John worked as a blacksmith until he died aged 45 in 1888 from dropsy of the heart, which I also discovered during my research for the victorians and all of the things that could kill you dropsy is edema a big swollen heart after john's death kate turned the tavern into a restaurant and she successfully ran it for 30

years she made enough money to buy four houses and a load of old buildings. A town newspaper from the 1890s reported that Kate travelled to the World's Fair on the East Coast. She toured Germany, Great Britain and Switzerland as well. Another interesting article appeared in the local paper in 1909, which featured an interview with Kate. And in this article, Kate shares her views that allowing children to play with toy guns was wrong. She said that children have primitive impulses, the worst elements

of one's own nature. When a combative idea is aroused, then it is only a step to murder. What was this interview about? Yeah, right. With the local restauranteur. And then she says, Love thy neighbour as thyself, and we'll have fewer grown-up murderers. What was this interview about? Yeah, right. With the local restauranteur. And then she says,

Love thy neighbour as thyself and we'll have fewer grown-up murderers. Which is basically the point we made in our own book. And whether this lady was Kate Bender or not, she died of heart failure on the 20th of January 1917 at 70 years old. And she was buried next to John in Linwood Cemetery. So in summary, no fucking clue, mate. No idea. I know.

It is. It's weird. It's weird. But it's an Aldo case. We'll never know. We'll never know. But it is a bit of fun. Exactly. So there you go.

That's a fun start to Halloween here at Red Handed. And we've got plenty more lined up for you. Don't even worry. Next week, we're going to be back with the 67 exorcisms of Annalise. Michelle? Mitchell? I always said Michael. Michael.

Annalise Michael. I think it is Annalise Michael. So yeah, it's a baddie. It's going to be rough, yeah. And there's lots of horrendous tapes that we're going to have to listen to together to get through it. But it will be fine. It will be fine. I can just imagine everybody.

It's October. And if you have the decency to live in a country that has seasons, crawl up. Sit on your sofa. Get your electric heat pad out. It's time. It's the best time of the year. Get a glass of wine. And let's all listen to some horrible tapes of a young woman being tortured.

And do you know what it is tomorrow? What is it tomorrow? It's my birthday. It is your birthday for listening to this on the day of release. October the 6th is, of course. It's Hannah Maguire Day. Hannah Maguire Day. And Saruti House Completion Day. Yeah. Loads of things going on. sixth is of course it's hannah mcguire day hannah mcguire day and sruti house completion day yeah

loads of things going on and um we've also got other things going on we've got loads of shorthands that you might want to check out hannah what's our shorthand what was our shorthand this week our shorthand this week was on the pope's exorcist father amour um the new blockbuster starring russell crowe yeah it's a film. Recovering his... Yeah, don't watch it. I've watched it, so you don't have to. And also, the Pope's exorcist is actually a bit of a misnomer because he is, in fact, the exorcist for the Diocese of Rome. The Vatican does not have its own exorcist.

And Catholic bloggers love to point that one out. So I just wanted to... Sure. ...clean that one up before we... The exorcist of the Diocese of the... Whatever you just said is less... Yeah. ...less catchy.

Yeah. No, I don't think I want to watch watch it i've had my fill of exorcism movies but i do think they spunked a lot of money on that movie you can tell that it has had money spent on it mainly on russell crowe obviously i'd rather watch the new exorcist movie it looks quite scary oh are they doing a new one yes it's like it may be out the new exorcist movie the exorcist believer um when is it out oh it's out on the 6th of october we're recording this in september guys it's out on your birthday it looks pretty scary and look I think Exorcist franchise is one of those ones

that Exorcist 3 is the best one I fucking love Exorcist 3 I've only seen the original Exorcist 2 don't waste your time Exorcist 3 fantastic film and this one Leslie Odom Jr's in it I'm not hating it

watch the trailer I'm not hating it. Watch the trailer. I'm not hating it. There you go. Scary shit. Anyway, go listen to that. Go listen to our shorthand this week. And also, for somebody who said I don't want to watch exorcism films anymore,

we've got a lot of exorcist behaviour going on because next week's shorthand is also a rundown of exorcisms from around the world. Oh, nice. So stay tuned for that. Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye. How was that?

Did you enjoy it? I hope so. If you did, once again remember, you could get your eyes, ears, hands on so much extra red handed content by simply going to patreon.com slash red handed right now and the more you give the more you get it's up to you choose your tier five dollars ten dollars twenty dollars it's up to you and also hey if you've left it a little bit last minute with your christmas presents a patreon

yearly subscription makes the perfect gift for the spooky bitch in your life, even if it's you. We bet you didn't know. Our new train's panoramic windows are ideal for contemplating whether texting them back so soon was the best decision. Get on board. Via Rail. Love the way. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey.

I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast haunted canada as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained search for haunted canada on apple podcast spotify amazon music or wherever you find your favorite podcasts