While the two women were certainly criminals and liars, as their own defense attorney admitted, the charges were weak and many people doubted their identification as the Benders. Though many wanted to relocate the building, it had become a controversy in Cherryvale, with locals objecting to the town being known for the Bender atrocities. On October 31, 1889, it was reported that a Mrs. Almira Monroe (a.k.a. In the first season, Deputy Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman), daughter of former state trooper, now diner owner, Lou Solverson (Carradine), must overcome the good-natured goofery of her department as she tracks the unparalleled malevolence of Loren Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton), who in serpent-like fashion enters the ear of persecuted loser Lester . From those who knew them and have written about the Benders:[4], She professed to be a medium of spiritualism, and delivered lectures on that subject. All four had crushed skulls and throats cut. Some of the Benders' neighbors claimed that John and Kate were not brother and sister, but actually husband and wife. Meanwhile, Ma and Pa Bender continued on the train north to Kansas City, where it was believed they transferred to a train headed to St. Louis. Season 4 Episode 22 (1961) of the TV series, Season 1, episode 15 (2006) of the TV series, The "Hitchcock's Birds, Hope Diamond, Phineas Gang" episode of the Travel Channel's show, The Bender Family is mentioned in episode 94 of the podcast, The story was recounted on Investigation Discovery's, The metal pioneers Macabre have a song about the Benders, who are said to be of Norwegian ancestry -. Franks father, Jesse P. Smalley, and several men were joking with a local judge, teasing him about his missing ear. Next to their room is a hospital man, an obese white man with bandages all over him and some kind of skin condition that makes him look monstrous to the passing child. Colonel York, leading a company of some 50 men, questioned every traveler along the trail and visited all the area homesteads. The little store carried a few supplies such as powder, shot, groceries, liquor, and tobacco, sold meals, and provided a safe overnight resting place to the strangers along the road. When he wakes alone again in the morning, Satchel takes Rabbit for a walk down the lane to where a man has finished building a cryptic billboard featuring a white man in a suit and hat smiling expectantly in front of a ranch style house. Several weeks after the discovery of the bodies, Addison Roach and his son-in-law, William Buxton, were arrested as accessories. Kate was the fifth child of Ma Bender and was born Eliza Griffith. The Benders were not what they appeared. As more and more travelers vanished, suspicion began to circle the Mellons. When the war was over, pioneers began to head westward along the many trails through Kansas; murder and mayhem persisted as hardened men from the battlefields, grown used to the violence, continued their violent ways along the overland trails in the many cow towns. While popular retelling of the story holds that John Jr. and Kate were siblings, contemporary newspapers reported . Inicio; mellon mounds kansas murders; Sin categorizar; mellon mounds kansas murders Find links to our programs, locations, partners, staff members, and communications. Ten bodies were found in the Benders apple orchard, including Dr. York and the people he had been searching for Mr. Loncher and his daughter, just seven or eight years old. They then began to follow a wagon trail left by the Benders that took them down as far south as Tulsa, Oklahoma, before circling back into Kansas. Another group claimed they had caught the Benders and lynched them before throwing their bodies into the Verdigris River. The Mellon family is a wealthy and influential American family from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hey babe, nice melon mounds. Also one of the victims was the neighbor of the person who wrote Little House on the Prarie. [11] Whether John Flickinger was really John Bender is unknown. John Bender, Sr. chose a 160-acre section on the western slopes of the mounds that continue to bear their name today. Daughter Kate was the friendliest of the bunch, speaking good English with just a slight accent and bore cultivated social skills. [5], Three days after the township meeting, Billy Tole was driving cattle past the Bender property when he noticed that the inn was abandoned and the farm animals were unfed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Benders. The museum remained a popular tourist destination until it closed in 1978 when a fire station was built. I used to have their Dahmer album way back. Leona Laurie is a Senior Contributor for Geek Girl Authority and co-host of the Marvel-Us podcast. Speaking English fluently with a German accent, he was said to have been social, but he was prone to laughing aimlessly, which led many people to think of him as a half-wit. melon mounds liberal kansascrank arm length calculator sheldon browncrank arm length calculator sheldon brown She advocated "free love," and denounced all social regulations for the promotion of purity and the prevention of carnality, which she called "miserable requirements of self-constituted society." This unnamed man was one of the many who made the mistake of stopping at the Bender Inn. Somehow, he escaped, appearing naked in the middle of the night at Jesse Smalleys doorstep. Kate was purportedly Elvira's fifth daughter. It says this home used to be run by the infamous Mellon Family, who lured travelers in before killing them with a hammer. 37 20.932 N, 95 31.668 W. Marker is in Morehead, Kansas, in Montgomery County. In its first three days of opening, it attracted more than 2,000 visitors. The house sits alone in a barren landscape composed of post-harvest fields coated halfheartedly with snow. Donald's family owns successful McDonald's franchises in their home town of Phoenix, Arizona. After Colonel Yorks visit and the meeting at the Harmony Grove schoolhouse, the Bender family fled. After opening the trap, the party found clotted blood on the floor of the empty room underneath, 6 feet (1.8m) deep and 7 feet (2.1m) square at the top by 3 feet (0.9m) square at the bottom. Though the pair were jailed, the case was dropped for lack of evidence. The Bender cabin was ripped apart by gruesome souvenir hunters right down to the bloody bricks that lined the cellar. When neighboring communities started to make slanderous insinuations, the Osage Township called a meeting held at the Harmony Grove schoolhouse in March to see what, if anything, could be done. I remember that song. Advertisement Coins. Fargo has won multiple Emmy Awards and Golden Globes Awards for outstanding work in television. In 1967, three of the Bender hammers were gifted to the museum by the Dick family. A roadside sign now marks their murderous exploits. Mrs. Davis claimed that Mrs. Monroe was Elvira Bender, but that she herself was not Kate, but her sister Sarah; she later signed an affidavit to that effect, while Monroe continued to deny the identification and in turn accused Sarah Eliza of being the real Kate Bender. Immigrating from Germany, John Bender, Sr. was 60 years old when he arrived in the area; his wife was about 55. Donald, his wife Karen and their three kids live a nice, comfortable life. Marker is on the grounds of the rest area located northeast of the intersection of US Highways 189 and 400, about three miles south of Morehead. The book "All the Blood We Share: A Novel of the Bloody Benders of Kansas", by Camilla Bruce, published in 2022. [1][2][3] Despite York's strong suspicions regarding the Benders since his visit several weeks earlier, no one had watched them, and it was not noticed for several days that they had fled. One weird oversight. ", "Kate proclaimed herself responsible to no one save herself.". A cult-like group, the families, chose from several available claims and began to make their homes. Once Kansas declared itself with the Union and the Civil War began, the bloody battles continued. 29th and Gage through [] ", In May 1871, the body of a man named Jones, whose skull had been crushed and throat cut, was discovered in Drum Creek. Tole reported the fact to the township trustee, but due to inclement weather, several days lapsed before the abandonment could be investigated. They buried their victims in a neighboring orchard, unbeknownst to the townspeople. They were not pursued, as lawmen following outlaws into this region often never returned. According to the 1870 census, George and his wife, Mary Jane, were neighbors of. Fixed: Release in which this issue/RFE has been fixed.The release containing this fix may be available for download as an Early Access Release or a General Availability Release. As they enter the location, named The Barton Arms, the clerk eventually gives Rabbi keys for the west side, though she lets him know that the sisters don't care much for Coloreds. Today, Smalley descendants continue to live in the Neodosha and Cherryvale area. [18] The hammers were displayed at the Bender Museum in Cherryvale, Kansas from 1967 to 1978, when the site was acquired for a fire station. Another of Mrs. Monroe's daughters, Mary Gardei, later provided an affidavit claiming that her mother (then Almira Shearer), under the name of Almira Marks, was actually serving two years in the Detroit House of Corrections in 1872 for the manslaughter of her daughter-in-law, Emily Mark. HISTORICAL MARKER [1][3] On April 3, Colonel York returned to the inn with armed men after being informed that a woman had fled from the inn after Elvira Bender had threatened her with knives. They purchased tickets on the northbound Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Train to Humboldt. The Benders are believed to have killed about a dozen people, including one child., Although stories abound, the ultimate fate of the murderous Bender family is uncertain. It first seems like Rabbi might escape, but ultimately he raises his hands in surrender and flies up into the clouds. Near here are the Bender Mounds, named for the infamous Bender family--John, his wife, son, and daughter Kate--who settled here in 1871. the mellon mounds kansas murders Blakeslee, 75, became intrigued by Etzanoa after scholars at UC Berkeley retranslated in 2013 the often muddled Spanish accounts of their forays into what is now Kansas . [7], A Kansas newspaper reported that the crowd was so incensed after finding the bodies that a friend of the Benders named Brockman, who was among the onlookers, was hanged from a beam in the inn until unconscious, revived, interrogated, then hanged again. It was a story about the infamous Benders and about one man who got away. The Bender family, more well known as the Bloody Benders, were a family of serial killers who lived and operated in Labette County, Kansas, United States, from May 1871 to December 1872. The township trustee called for volunteers, and several hundred turned out to form a search party that included Colonel York. The breastbone had been driven in. Mrs. Monroe now admitted she had married a Mr. Shearer in 1872 and claimed she had previously denied it, as she did not want the court to know that her name was Shearer at that time and that she had a conviction for manslaughter. Though he reached Fort Scott unscathed and started to return to Independence on March 8, he never reached home. (In case you wondered after reading that, like I did, what year The Mulligan Concern arrived in Kansas City, it was 1920. did phineas and ferb die in a car accident. If this really is Oz, then Satchel is Dorothy and Rabbit is Toto. In the spring of 1873, Longcor's former neighbor, Dr. William Henry York, went looking for them and questioned homesteaders along the trail. The Bender family, more well known as the Bloody Benders, were a family of serial killers who lived and operated in Labette County, Kansas, United States, from May 1871 to December 1872. The for the guy who discovered Pluto? The plaque in the show refers to fictional murderers--the Mellons--while the reference implicit in that is to their real-life inspiration, the Benders. The 162-acre tract of cropland known as the "Bender Farm" will be sold off to. It also brings to mind Lester Nygards murder weapon in season one. Also, sleep with one eye open. The family quickly ran away in the middle of the night never to be seen. What little he did speak was so guttural that it was usually unintelligible. No one ever claimed the $3,000 reward ($67,858 as of 2023), however. Elvira and Kate Bender also planted a 2-acre (0.81ha) vegetable garden and apple orchard north of the cabin. [7] Brockman would be arrested again 23 years later for the rape and murder of his own 18-year-old daughter.[8]. Menu [1][2][3], The area was already widely known for "horse thieves and villains, and vigilance committees often "arrested" some for the disappearances, only for them to be later released by the authorities. mellon mounds kansas murders. Will this theme continue next week? RELATED: Missed the last episode? Elvira was rumored to have murdered several husbands, but none of these rumors was ever proven. Kate's popularity became a large attraction for the Benders' inn. From these depths allegedly came the souls of those murdered on the site, wandering about the property and making moaning sounds that passersby could hear. Kate Bender, who was around 23, was cultivated and attractive and spoke English well, with little accent. As they break for a Coke, Calamita arrives. The Benders were undoubtedly surprised to find that the man wasnt dead. 11) December 1872: Red Smith. Gabe Gibson, Effingham, Illinois, as told to him by his grandfather, Emerson Smalley, January 2011. The story of the Benders' escape spread, and the search continued on and off for the next 50 years. The parts did not belong to any of the other victims found and are believed to belong to at least three additional victims. After following a fresh trail of wagon tracks, a search party found that the Benders had gone to the town of nearby Thayer, some twelve miles to the north. Upon further investigation, Captain James B. The Bender artifacts were eventually given to the Cherryvale Museum, where they remain in a wall-mounted display case. And everything is in color! These hammers were given to the Bender Museum in 1967 by the son of LeRoy Dick, the Osage Township trustee who headed the search of the Bender property. barry mcguigan, daughter funeral; mellon mounds kansas murders Mrs. Monroe resisted, declaring that she would not be taken alive, but was subdued by local deputies. 0 coins. They disappeared in the spring of 1873, shortly before inquisitive neighbors discovered the victims' bodies. This historical marker was erected by Kansas State Historical Society and Kansas Department of Transportation. Along with an old episode of Death Valley Days. And then, in so many words, Scalia said that nothing in the Eighth Amendment requires that jurors considering "mitigating evidence" that could . I'd need to check but my gut feeling is that its real. A Catholic priest claimed to have seen one of the Bender men concealing a large hammer, at which point he became uncomfortable and quickly departed. The front section also contained the kitchen and dining table, where travelers could stop for a meal or even spend the night. Shortly thereafter, the family disappeared. 23) February 1872: Two unidentified men found on the prairie in February 1872 with crushed skulls and throats cut. Cherryvale, Kansas While not actually on the old Bender property, the marker sits on the high prairie about a mile northwest of Bender Mounds at the US-400 and US-169 interchange at the Montgomery County Rest area, north of Cherryvale. Yep the Abberdeens are very clearly based on the Benders, specifically Kate and John Jr. Thomas Jefferson was one of the first to excavate into a Native American burial mound, citing the disappearance of the "noble" Indianscaused by violence and the corruption of the encroaching white. However, there were no bodies in the hole. They buried their victims in a neighboring orchard, unbeknownst to the townspeople. Continuing, they began to dig around the cabin, especially in an area the Benders had utilized as a vegetable garden and orchard. One of the families was John BenderSr. and John BenderJr., who registered 160 acres (65ha) of land located adjacent to the Great Osage Trail, which was then the only open road for traveling farther west. . Allegedly, while working at the Bender Inn, she earned her keep as a prostitute, adding an additional amount to the travelers bill for the privilege of laying with her. The next morning, another eight bodies were found in seven of the nine suspected graves, while one was found in the well, along with a number of body parts. Eventually, she married and went by the name of Sara Eliza Davis. Satchel tries looking for Rabbi, but a short conversation with the hospital man and a glimpse of the preacher and his mother folding a flag in their underwear (night wear?) Though most of us know of Dodge Citys wicked ways, the deadly gunfight of the Daltons in Coffeyville, and the many outlaws and gunfighters who spent time in the Sunflower State, few are aware of a family of mass murderers, living a supposed quiet life near the small town of Cherryvale. The owner of the Drum Creek claim was suspected, but no action was taken. In October 1870, five families of spiritualists homesteaded in and around the township of Osage in northwestern Labette County, approximately 7mi (11km) northeast of where Cherryvale was established seven months later. Their attorney also produced a marriage certificate indicating that Mrs. Davis had been married in Michigan in 1872, the time when several of the murders were committed. Like others, he was hit over the head as he sat at the table. This went on for years until they killed someone related to a Civil War hero and a senator. He leaves Satchel in the car with Rabbit while hes doing this, and the boy is approached by a nervous policeman who prepares to draw his weapon as he asks Satchel to leave the car. . York had two brothers: Ed York living in Fort Scott, and Colonel Alexander M. York, a Civil War veteran, lawyer, and member of the Kansas State Senate from Independence who, in November 1872, had been instrumental in exposing U.S.